INLESS GHRI3 



I 



GEORGE IH^^njRVE 



GopyiiglitN!' 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 




Copyrig-ht by F. Gutekunst 

George Tybout Purves, D.D., LL.D. 



— — — ' 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



BY 

GEORGE TYBOUT PURVES, D. D., LL.D. 

Lath Pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New Yor 
SoMETiMB Professor in Princeton Theological Seminary 




PHILADELPHIA 



PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 
AND SABBATH-SCHOOL WORK 



THE LIBRA fty OF 
CONGRESS, 

WAV f^r^ 

CLAR8(^yXo No. 

cory 8. 



Copyright, 1902, by the Trustees of 
The Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath- 
School Work. 

Published November, ZQ02. 




LC Control Number 




tmp96 029058 



^5 INTRODUCTION 



The sermons contained in this volume cannot 
fairly be called sermons preached by Dr. Purves. 
He prepared full notes. In preaching, however, 
he was absolutely independent of them, and many 
of the most impressive passages of his discourses 
had never been written. But, as he closely ad- 
hered in the pulpit at many points to the lan- 
guage of the outline written in his study, these 
discourses will enable the readers who heard him 
preach on their texts to recall the sermons as 
he delivered them. 

Those who, Hke the writer of this Introduction, 
listened to Dr. Purves regularly as his parish- 
ioners know that he was an exceptionally great 
preacher. Underlying his preaching was the 
Christian "theory of the universe." To this 
theory he had given and was always giving the 
careful study and reflection of a large, disci- 
plined and energetic mind. As he apprehended 



vi 



INTRODUCTION 



it, it was self-consistent, justified by reason and 
in harmony with his religious experience. It was 
his strongest, most distinct and most cherished 
intellectual conviction. 

During his entire professional life he was a 
close, scientific and enthusiastic student of the 
Bible, and of the New Testament in particular. 
He had a brilliant career for eight years as Profes- 
sor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis in 
Princeton Theological Seminary. He knew the 
later Scriptures as few men know them. He 
received them as the absolutely truthful and in- 
spired record of God's gracious revelation to sin- 
ful men, and as the infallible rule of religious 
faith and life. 

His religious life was sincere and simple. The 
trait which those near to him would probably call 
distinguishing and out-standing was his affectionate 
loyalty to Jesus Christ, his Redeemer, Lord and 
Friend. 

He was a man of high intellectual tastes and 
wide and various intellectual interests. He was a 
cultivated man who loved good and great books. 
But these tastes, strong as they were, were reso- 



INTRODUCTION 



vii 



lutely subordinated to his sympathy with his 
fellow-men, his affection for them and his active 
interest in their spiritual well-being. This affec- 
tionate interest finely revealed itself in his work 
as a Christian pastor. I never knew a better 
pastor than Dr. Purves was when in Princeton. 

He had a great gift of speech. I have heard 
him more than once when he was compelled to 
speak with no time at all for preparation and had 
to throw himself upon his reserve of culture. 
At these times he surprised and delighted me 
by the spontaneous methodizing of his mind, and 
the clearness and grace of his speech. I never 
heard him speak when his own emotions and 
the emotions of his audience were not stirred. 
He spoke with fervor and energy, which the 
hearer felt as power. 

To say that these were the gifts, convictions, 
attainments and method of a man is to call him a 
great didactic Christian orator. But no catalogue 
will explain the consummate charm of Dr. Purves 
as a preacher. The living whole was far greater 
than the sum of all the parts. We, whom he in- 
structed and inspired, while we rejoice that some 



viii 



INTRODUCTION 



of his discourses are given to the public, cannot 
help regretting that many of those who will ob- 
tain from this volume new strength to do and 
bear and undergo and overcome, did not enjoy 
the high privilege which was ours when he 
opened unto us the Scriptures. 

John DeWitt. 

Princeton, October 23, 1902. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. The Sinless Christ 3 

II. The Crisis of a Soul . . . -25 

III. Confessing Christ 47 

IV. Samson's Riddle . . . . -73 

V. Peter's Shadow, or Unconscious In- 

fluence ...... 97 

VI. The Way, the Truth, and the Life . 121 

VII. Earthly and Heavenly Lights . .143 
VIII. The Waiting Dead 167 

ix 



I 

THE SINLESS CHRIST 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



I 

THE SINLESS CHRIST i 

" For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, 
undefiled, separate from sinners." — Heb. vii. 26. 

Whatever makes the person of Jesus Christ 
vividly real to our thoughts helps us in our daily- 
lives. Practical Christianity finds a mighty stimu- 
lus in trusting, contemplating, understanding, and 
following Him ; for in so doing we learn to live 
with God and for man. He is the personal center 
of our religion, the living revelation of truth and 
life, the magnet by which we are drawn heaven- 
ward, the One in and by whom salvation becomes 
an actual possession. Yet thus vividly and 
truthfully to apprehend Him is not easy. Being 
invisible. He does not stand so clearly before us as 
do other objects which address themselves to our 
senses. The historical distance from us of His 

' The copyright of this sermon belongs to the Fleming H. 
Revell Company, New York and Chicago, who courteously permit 
its use in this volume. 

3 



4 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



earthly career is apt to make His figure indistinct. 
Even our dogmatic conceptions of His person 
and work sometimes become formal and lifeless, 
though intended to interpret Him, and though 
correctly expressing what we should believe about 
Him. It ought, therefore, to be our effort con- 
stantly to repaint His figure upon the canvas of 
our thought, to turn upon Him the Hght of ex- 
perience and research, of comparison and analy- 
sis, that fresh ideas of His unspeakable glory 
may daily dawn upon our minds, deHght our 
hearts, and cause us to give Him all the admira- 
tion and devotion of which we may be capable. 

Now, in the words of our text, we have briefly 
described the moral purity of Jesus, the sinless, 
unspotted excellence of His personal character. 
The language is very vivid. It shows the pro- 
found impression which Jesus made on the first 
generation of disciples — the immediate reflection 
of the impression made on those who came into 
direct contact with Him. The words breathe the 
realism of personal acquaintance. They do not 
enlarge upon what all knew, but they express 
very beautifully the sense of ineffable purity and 
holiness, of infinite moral superiority, which the 
disciples received from Him whose very presence 
had revealed a new and heavenly life. He was 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



5 



" holy "; and the Greek word is not the common 
one for a thing set apart for sacred usage, but a 
word less often employed and indicative of an 
exquisitely pure and lofty character, one that real- 
ized and discharged all its obhgations. He was 
" harmless," i. e., thoroughly good, gentle, benevo- 
lent, tender-hearted, and true. Out of Him as 
they remembered Him, no harm ever proceeded. 
No evil ever issued from act or word of His. 
Nothing but good came from Him. When we 
remember how much we influence one another, 
and how much evil goes forth even from the best 
of us, to counterbalance not a little of the good 
we do, we shall appreciate the character of the 
One of whom it could be said by those who knew 
Him best, that He was, as He bade them to be, 
" harmless as a dove." Further, He was " unde- 
filed " — untainted by the corruption of the world 
in which He dwelt, unspotted by the passions 
which left a stain even on apostles. In short. He 
was " separate from sinners." Some would take 
these words with those that follow, " made higher 
than the heavens," and understand them to de- 
scribe our Lord as now separated at the right 
hand of God from the world of sinners, even as 
the high priest in the most holy place was sepa- 
rated from the multitude for whom He made 



6 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



atonement. But I judge it more natural to see in 
these words another phrase to describe Christ's per- 
sonal character. He was separated from sinners. 
The disciples who stood nearest to Him felt that 
there was a great chasm between His spotless 
soul and theirs. He was on a plane above them. 
His motives and purposes were unlike theirs. 
And this, although in other respects He was so 
near to them and so truly man. He had laid hold, 
as this epistle says, on the seed of Abraham. He 
was touched with the feehng of their infirmities. 
He was full of sympathy and friendship. He 
understood them. He took them by the hand. 
He wept over their griefs and rejoiced in their 
joys. Yet He was evidently as far above them 
as the gleaming stars were higher than the water 
in which their briUiance was reflected. He was 
the friend of publicans and harlots, and yet He 
was " separate from sinners." 

Could any language more forcibly express the 
sense which the disciples had of their Master's 
sinlessness ? As I have said, the words indicate 
the realism of personal acquaintance. They do 
not speak in the language of the schools. They 
do not measure Christ's worth by formal stand- 
ards. They are the outcome of personal adora- 
tion and unspeakable reverence for One whose 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



7 



character and life had been to those who knew 
Him the disclosure of the absolutely good. 

Now I desire to enable you, if possible, to real- 
ize afresh the sinlessness of Jesus Christ by sug- 
gesting certain considerations which ought to 
make it very clear and very astonishing to our 
minds. I would exalt your sense of His personal 
perfection, — unlike that of any other character 
who ever has appeared in the history of our race, 
— and I would do it, not by a formal proof of the 
doctrine, but by setting His life in its surround- 
ings, with the hope that the same impression may 
be made on our minds as on those who knew 
Him first. 

I. Consider, then, that in all the records which 
we have of the Lord Jesus there is not the slight- 
est betrayal by Him of the least degree of the 
consciousness of sin. We have a sufficiently 
complete record to justify us in saying that this 
is a fact. We see Him in most trying hours. We 
hear Him pray. We listen to His teaching on 
religious themes. We hear Him reprove others. 
We catch glimpses of Him in private as well as 
in pubHc. We know that He spoke often about 
Himself But in all the life of Christ we never 
hear any confession of unworthiness or any long- 
ing after holiness, nor discover any indication what- 



8 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



ever that He felt Himself in the least degree 
touched by sin. 

The significance of this will appear if we recall 
two other facts, one of experience, the other of 
history. 

The first is that, as a matter of universal ex- 
perience, the more spiritual a man becomes the 
more does he feel himself a sinner and unworthy 
of fellowship with God. The progress of man's 
moral life commonly consists in the awakening 
and sharpening of his conscience. He becomes 
more keenly aware of moral obligations. He 
sees them where before he saw them not. He 
analyzes more thoroughly his motives and clas- 
sifies more correctly his duties. He becomes 
more sensitive to the demands made upon his 
conscience, just as progress in other departments 
of activity consists in the refinement of our powers 
and the larger perception of the objects on which 
they were meant to terminate. This is the law 
of the moral and spiritual life of man. He is at 
first a child, and, like a child, takes in only a few 
facts, feels his obligations in but a few directions. 
Some men never grow beyond this stage. Though 
their intellects may be cultured and their bodies 
strengthened, their moral faculties remain unde- 
veloped. Then conscience is apt to become a 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



9 



mere scourge, driving to unloved duty ; a night- 
mare, affrighting with threats of torment. But 
just so far as the spiritual life of man has blos- 
somed and flowered, so far has his sensitiveness 
to evil increased, his recognition of it brightened 
and clarified, his consciousness of its presence in 
him become more intense, and his longings after 
freedom from it become stronger. Witness in 
proof of this the hymns of all religions, and 
especially the hymns of Christendom. Witness 
the advance of social morality, taking in, as it has 
gradually done, matters that were once thought 
quite indifferent. Read the confessions of the 
purest men and women who eve^r have lived. Those 
that have risen highest have felt themselves the 
lowest. And this has not been a delusion with 
them ; they have only seen more clearly. A vil- 
lainous murderer went to the scaffold saying that 
he looked on his life as a whole with much satis- 
faction, and felt that, with the trifling exception 
of a murder, he had tried to do right by all men. 
Augustine wrote, The dwelling of my soul is in 
ruins ; do Thou restore it. There is that in it which 
must offend thine eyes ; I confess and know it : 
but who will cleanse it ?" Such are fair examples. 
Who of us that tries to love God does not know 
the same thing from his own experience ? As 



lO 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



Christian life proceeds, as its insight becomes 
clearer, as its consciousness deepens and is puri- 
fied, it becomes more and more ready to say with 
the Scripture, " In my flesh there dwelleth no 
good thing," and to repeat confessions at which 
the world sometimes stands amazed. Just in pro- 
portion as man's moral Hfe advances does he feel 
that he is not worthy even to gather up the 
crumbs that fall from the festal table which the 
grace of God has spread. 

But lo ! the one Person who by act and word 
gave evidence of the most spiritual life was abso- 
lutely without this element of mind. He had the 
clearest insight into moral duties. His words are 
still recognized as embodying the loftiest ethics. 
His character is held worthy of universal imita- 
tion. He loved to pray. He talked with God as 
though he saw Him. Yet, unlike every other 
man of spiritual insight who ever lived, he never 
betrayed any sense of unworthiness or of need of 
greater holiness. 

This stands out still more remarkably when 
we associate it with the historical fact that in the 
Jewish world in which Jesus lived the sense of 
sin and of general apostasy from God was spe- 
cially strong among awakened minds. Jesus Hved 
in the age when John cried to all Israel, " Repent !" 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



II 



and with prophetic zeal unveiled the monstrous 
corruption of the church and nation. But John 
himself very plainly confessed his own unworthi- 
ness. Speaking of the Messiah, he said, " His shoe's 
latchet I am not worthy to unloose." So, like- 
wise, those men who followed Jesus were very 
emphatic in their confessions of sin. Peter cried, 
" I am a sinful man, O Lord." The centurion 
said, " I am not worthy that thou shouldest come 
under my roof" Paul called himself " the chief 
of sinners." Wherever Christ or his gospel went 
men were awakened in an eminent degree to the 
fact of sin, and were led to confess that, even if 
believers, they were only beginning to aspire to 
that holiness without which they felt that no 
man can see the Lord. 

But again, amid this whole movement and as 
the vital center of it, the Lord Jesus never be- 
trayed the slightest consciousness of wrong. If 
He had been the product of the same influences 
which molded the rest, He would have been the 
loudest in His confessions. But not an accent of 
penitence fell from His lips. How does the con- 
sciousness of sin show itself? With some in fear, 
causing them to turn away from God and dread to 
think of Him, much more to pray. With others 
it assumes the form of bravado, leading them to 



12 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



boldly dare the consequences of their misdeeds. 
These effects, however, are seen in characters 
which cannot possibly be compared with Christ's. 
With good men, on the other hand, who have 
been awakened to a sense of sin, it shows itself 
in expressions of repentance, in prayers for for- 
giveness, in longings after holiness, in acknowl- 
edgment of the unmerited grace of God; some- 
times in painful acts of self-denial and asceticism, 
which are supposed to compensate for transgres- 
sion or to extinguish the power of evil. But none 
of these things are discoverable in Jesus. Though 
He called others to repent, He Himself never 
expressed repentance. He never asked to be 
forgiven, though He taught us to ask it. On the 
contrary, we find Him rejoicing in the assurance 
of His Father's eternal love, delighting in com- 
munion with God, and finally openly challenging 
His enemies on this very point : " Which of you 
convinceth Me of sin ?" Nor is there any trace 
of development in His spiritual life, but, from the 
first and to the last, the utter absence of the con- 
sciousness of sin appears in Him, The Buddha 
claimed to reach perfection, but only as the result 
of a long and painful process of self-purification. 
Christ appears as free from the sense of sin in the 
beginning of His career as amid its close. 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



13 



Is not this a life which stands alone in all his- 
tory ? Try to imagine, if it be possible on the 
ordinary suppositions of human experience, how 
one could be gifted with such spiritual discern- 
ment and yet see no flaw in himself, if there was 
a flaw. How could one teach such high and 
pure morals without confessing his own short- 
comings, if he did come short ? How could one 
dwell so near to the divine Father and never ask 
to be forgiven sin, which that Father hates, if 
there was any sin to be forgiven ? I ask you to 
think of this, not from the standpoint of the deity 
of Christ in which we believe, but from the stand- 
point of His humanity. Conceive the impression 
which He must have made upon those about Him. 
Realize that He was an actual living person. 
Then you will appreciate the fact that in all the 
record of His life there is not a trace of the 
slightest sense of sin. If I should say, I know 
not the Father," said Jesus to the Pharisees, " I 
should be a Har like unto you : but I know Him 
and keep His sayings." " I do always those 
things which please Him." Such expressions, 
imbedded in such a life, form a unique fact in the 
history of moral teaching. 

2. There are only two ways by which those 
who doubt these facts can evade the force of the 



14 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



evidence. The first is by saying that the record 
in the gospels is not true, but that the disciples 
exaggerated the character of their Master, embel- 
lished His virtues, and forgot His faults. To 
reply to this objection would lead us too far 
afield. It involves the whole question of the 
credibility of the Gospels. But I may point out 
in passing that the Gospels do describe Christ's 
weakness and weariness, His struggles with temp- 
tation, and His agony in the garden. They evince 
no disposition, therefore, to idealize the character 
of Jesus or to hide His genuine humanity. On 
the other hand, they do not, except in the pro- 
logue to the fourth Gospel, bring out the formal 
doctrine about Him which the apostles themselves 
believed, nor do they impute to the Master the 
theological language which later revelations would 
have justified. They have therefore all the ap- 
pearance of honest histories. They confirm one 
another. They are themselves confirmed by the 
epistles. The very simplicity of their story attests 
their historical veracity. 

The other way to escape the natural inference 
from the facts of which we have been speaking is 
to say that Jesus was under an hallucination, that 
His enthusiasm made Him blind to His own 
defects. So Renan writes : " Jesus cannot be 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



15 



judged by the rule of our petty propriety. The 
admiration of His disciples overwhelmed Him 
and carried Him away." 

I wish, therefore, to suggest certain other facts 
which render these objections highly improbable, 
and which also serve to give a still livelier sense 
of the real sinlessness of our Lord. 

The first is that it was those who were nearest 
to Him who have testified to His spotless purity. 
It is quite easy to make a good impression on the 
public. It is not so easy to extort from those 
who live with us a similar tribute unless it be 
deserved. Many men seem great and good at a 
distance, but nearer at hand their faults are mani- 
fest. Now the fact was that in pubHc Jesus was 
often charged with doing wrong. The Pharisees 
openly called Him a sinner, because they thought 
He broke the Sabbath, and a devil because He 
opposed them, and a blasphemer because He said 
God was His Father. He did not live such a life 
as to be called a saint by the established standard 
of the day. His reputation was not based on 
conformity to the common ideal. On the con- 
trary, He was crucified as a malefactor. It was 
only those who lived with Him who testify to the 
spotless beauty of His character. They saw Him 
in private. They watched Him in His most critical 



6 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



hours. They heard His ejaculations. They were 
His confidential friends. But it was they who 
from the very first acknowledged, and with greater 
emphasis as their acquaintance with Him ripened, 
that He was the Holy One of God. Their testi- 
mony seems of great worth. Popular applause 
is easy to win if we conform to the popular ideal, 
but this testimony was rendered in the face of 
derision and apparent failure, by those who knew 
Him best. 

Furthermore, nothing that Jesus ever said or 
did appears even now to indicate sin in Him. We 
have grown very wise. Some think that, speak- 
ing comparatively, we have grown good. Cer- 
tainly the world has greatly advanced in the 
knowledge of duty. But it is a fact that we can- 
not find anything to criticize in Jesus from a moral 
point of view. All that we can do, whether 
Christians or not, from theologians to novelists, 
is to show that our teachings were His. He can 
still say, " Which of you convinceth Me of sin ?" 
In this age, for example, we lay great stress on 
the love of man as the highest form of morality ; 
on benevolence, unselfishness, on altruism. But 
all this was taught and practised years ago by 
Jesus. Or, if we say that morahty depends on 
the motives from which men act, what motives 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



17 



can be higher than those which appear in the life 
of Jesus ? The Sermon on the Mount is the 
moral code of the ages, and point, if you can, to 
any principle or precept of that sermon which 
Jesus did not obey in His life. I need not expand 
on this; but I beg you to remember that the 
growing moral sense of nineteen centuries has 
not convicted Him of any fault of character. 

Still again, remember that He made this im- 
pression on His friends and gave this evidence 
in His life, although He was perfectly open to 
temptation and, in fact, fought it hand to hand. 
He was not a cold ideal. He was not a statue in j 
marble. Life's battle was tremendously real to 
Him. He was tempted as we are. He grew 
also in knowledge and wisdom. Therefore the 
spotless holiness of His character becomes of 
treble worth. It appears a living attainment. It 
was a conquest. It was a thoroughly human qual- 
ity, and on that account must have impressed the 
more those who were about Him. We need not 
stumble over the notion that a sinless person can- 
not be tempted. If our first parents were tempted 
and fell, Christ could be tempted without falling. 
Moreover, the power of temptation consists simply 
in its offering us something that we desire ; and 
Jesus desired much that He could not have, if he 
2 



i8 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



were to become man's Redeemer. It was His lot 
to lay aside the enjoyment of Heaven's favor; to 
fail apparently of winning men to God ; at least 
to have the Father hide His face from Him. His 
temptations lay in the desire for those good things 
which were forbidden Him, and the very intensity 
of His love of God and man made the tempta- 
tions stronger. At any rate the testimony is 
unanimous that He knew temptation's power. 
The battle in the wilderness of Judea, the agony 
in the garden of Gethsemane, the remark that 
fell from His lips, " I have overcome the world," 
sufficiently attest it. This very writer of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews knew it. He says, " He 
was in all points tempted like as we are, yet with- 
out sin." " In that He Himself hath suffered 
being tempted. He is able to succor them that are 
tempted." The disciples knew Him too well to 
claim for Him exemption from the common lot. 
They saw Him harassed and oppressed, and 
therefore bowed the more reverently before the 
meekness and gentleness, the purity and love, the 
unselfishness and the righteousness, which in spite 
of temptation never failed to manifest themselves 
in Jesus. This adds immensely to our admiration 
of His character. He was one of ourselves. 
The hoHness of God may be too far above us for 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



19 



us to comprehend it, but the spotless purity of 
the tempted Saviour, who will not adore ? 

Now, once more, I add that the Lord Jesus 
had for His confessed rule of life a principle which 
naturally made Him realize keenly the presence 
of sin, even in its least apparent forms. He said, 
" My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me "; 
and through all His life the will of God was His 
law, and to do that will was His firm resolve. I ask 
you to note this particularly; for a man's sense 
of sin depends directly upon his idea of what sin 
is. Many people think that only crime is sin, and 
because they have done no crime they feel no 
sense of sin. Others think sin to be merely self- 
ishness, and because they are kind and philan- 
thropic, do not regard themselves as seriously at 
fault. But the Bible teaches that sin is far more 
than this. It is any want of conformity to the 
will of God. Man owes to God absolute loyalty / 
of thought and act. The least rupture of that 
loyalty is sin. The broader and deeper our 
knowledge of the will of God, the more must we 
feel that we are sinful. Now my point is, that 
Jesus was fully aware of this. This was His rule ; 
by this He judged. And He gives evidence of 
so broad and deep a knowledge of what God's 
will is that the rule of His life made Him sensible 



20 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



of sin to a degree in comparison with which our 
best perceptions of it are as twilight to high noon. 

Yet He had no sense of personal sin. Though 
He had the highest possible standard by which to 
judge, He never felt that the standard condemned 
Him. Though He was keenly alive to moral dif- 
ferences, though He stands before us the supreme 
Teacher of what is right, though He had for His 
rule of life the highest of all laws, He deliber- 
ately said, " I have overcome the world "; " I have 
finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do." 

Fellow-sinners, what a character is this ! It 
defies all explanations save that of the text. A 
man, yet a sinless man ! Tempted, but never 
stained ! Fighting hand to hand with evil, but 
never wounded by it ! In the world, and yet 
above it ! Once and only once in human history 
has this spectacle appeared. 

Permit me, then, in a word, to press upon your 
minds the practical importance of this truth. 

The moral character of Jesus is a sufficient cre- 
dential of the truth of His gospel. He has other 
credentials, but I bring forward this to-day. He 
is unique. He is truth and righteousness incarnate. 
Therefore His word must be authoritative ; His 
teaching concerning God and duty, truth and sal- 
vation, must be our absolute standard. He guar- 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



21 



antees by His personal sinlessness the authority 
of the message. What He declares to be God's 
truth we must accept as such. What He declares 
to be God's will and purpose we must obey and 
believe. We scarcely need other evidence. At 
His feet, mind and heart should bow. 

Further, He is worthy to be man's representa- 
tive before God. Sinless Himself, He is a right- 
ful priest of humanity. So our text says, " Such 
an high priest became us." This is what we need. 
Who but He can venture for us into the most 
holy place ? Who but He can sprinkle the aton- 
ing blood ? He is a priest whose right to mediate, 
history and conscience, as well as God, declare. 

For can we suppose that this sinless life was 
lived for Himself alone ? He Himself assures us 
of the contrary. He came into the world, — He 
did not belong to it. He had no need to live on 
earth at all. His express declaration is that He 
came for our redemption. If so, we must cer- 
tainly behold in His sinless life more even than 
the perfect example of what our lives should be. 
It was the necessary preparation for the sacrifice 
of the cross, and it becomes more than ever pre- 
cious when we consider that it was part of the 
redemption price paid for our deliverance. For 
we are " not redeemed with corruptible things, as 



22 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



silver and gold, but with the precious blood of 
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without 
spot." The character which the world itself cannot 
but admire, and the life which stands forth as the 
great exception to all other lives, obtain the high- 
est significance when we also remember that God 
" hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; 
that we might be made the righteousness of God 
in Him." Well may we adore Him. Well may 
we imitate and obey Him. But above all else, 
well may we trust Him ; for He has won the right 
to redeem us, and is able to save unto the utter- 
most all those that come unto God by Him. 



II 

THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



II 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 

" Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the 
angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." — Luke xv. io. 

What a contrast is this to the estimate of things 
which prevails on earth ! Crowds of human beings, 
wild with enthusiasm, toss up their hats and make 
the air ring with their hurrahs ; but it is for the 
victory of their national arms or the triumph of 
their political party. Church bells peal out their 
inspiring strains as if to waken man and nature to 
gladness and thankfulness; but it is only for a 
formal festival or to summon already devout souls 
to worship God. The faces that we gaze on in 
the streets do not often indicate much joy at all ; 
but when they do, it is commonly only the joy of 
social pleasure or commercial success. The world 
is for the most part absorbed in admiring itself, or 
the one part is absorbed in envying the other. 
Or, if not so bad as that, its joy springs from the 
discovery it makes, the knowledge it gains, the 
canvas it paints, and the fortunes it gathers. It is 
not wholly so, I know. There are some who do 

25 



26 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



show the heavenly spirit and rejoice in the prog- 
ress of reform, the upHfting of the lowly, and the 
salvation of the lost But alas ! these are a mi- 
nority. The common judgments of earth are quite 
different and utterly forget the real values of the 
things which they applaud. 

But the world of spirits which looks down on 
this judges by another standard. It smiles in pity 
at men's love of toys that will soon be broken. 
It sorrows to see noble powers prostituted to un- 
worthy ends. The pleasures which most men find 
only awaken sadness in the angels' hearts. The 
world seems all awry, given over to delusion, in- 
sane with its self-love and self-applause. These 
angelic eyes are eager to see other spectacles, and 
whenever they behold a prodigal rising from his 
sins and setting his face toward home, or a proud 
man bending on his knees before the altar and con- 
fessing in sincerity the wickedness of his pride, or 
a sinner of any kind, convicted of his sinfulness, 
and crying, " God, be merciful to me a sinner," 
then the song breaks forth from the heavenly 
hosts, and round the throne of God the angels 
of His presence chant a new triumph of their 
Father in the rescue of another human soul. 

This contrast was part of the general reversal 
of opinion about the worth of things which Jesus 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



27 



taught to be necessary. He said, Many that are 
first shall be last and the last first." I came not 
to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." 
" How hardly shall they that have riches enter into 
the kingdom of God !" " Blessed are the poor in 
spirit : for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." 
These declarations turn the popular ideas upside 
down. They precisely reverse the common judg- 
ment. Even the best Christians do not fully share 
the mind of Christ upon such subjects, and the 
most of us are following Him a great way off. 
Especially is it pitiable to see the indifference to 
moral qualities and the practical unbelief in the 
danger in which every sinful soul stands. We 
must needs pity ourselves that we can be so indif- 
ferent. It may do us good, by helping us to judge 
ourselves more faithfully and to serve others more 
wisely, to inquire why there is joy in the presence 
of the angels of God over one sinner that repent- 
eth. From what we are elsewhere taught, and 
from what we may naturally infer, it is possible to 
give an answer to the question, and it may let 
some of heaven's light in upon our darkness. 

I. I suggest, therefore, that in the presence of 
the angels of God there is known the full value of 
a human soul. We do not realize the value of a 
soul, for several reasons. We think more, for ex- 



28 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



ample, of institutions than of individuals. We see 
that certain great corporations (as I may call them) 
appear to be important for the progress of the race 
and the well-being of society. The Church is im- 
portant for the culture of morals ; the school for 
the discovery of character and the attainment of 
knowledge ; the State for the protection of prop- 
erty and the order of society. We make these as 
of first value and give them our zealous support. 
What matters it that thousands perish on the field 
of battle, if the nation be preserved? It is of 
more moment, we are apt to think, to advance the 
cause in which we are interested than to stop in our 
career to give heed even to the particular persons 
by whom the cause is to be upheld. Men die, we 
say, but institutions live. The great ideas, which 
are embodied in them, must be perpetuated, and if 
they are, the greatest end has been accomplished. 

It is natural for us thus to feel and argue. It is 
true that, relatively to the race, institutions are 
more important than individuals. It is true that 
the country is worth preserving even at the cost 
of a million lives. It is true that, so far as our 
efforts go, institutions rank above men. But we 
should be one-sided and one-half blind if we let 
this truth absorb us. For what is society but the 
aggregation of individuals ? What are institutions 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



29 



for but for the particular men and women whom 
they help ? In upholding them we ought to remem- 
ber that their worth is wholly based on the value 
of individual souls. They are not ends in them- 
selves. They will perish with the men that use 
them. We make great mistakes when we forget 
the man, in the machine, or the soul in the society. 
Heaven does not make this blunder. It sees the 
worth of each, be he the most obscure. The 
angels know that in the ultimate analysis institu- 
tions exist for men, not men for institutions. 

Then again, we are apt to think of external 
dress and circumstance rather than of the internal 
life which is the reality of a man ; of the fruits 
and flowers rather than of the root which bears 
them ; of the gaudy palace rather than of the 
man who lives therein. We are apt to think rep- 
utation worth more than character, forgetting that 
if the two differ, character will pierce through the 
husk of reputation and make its true form known. 
We are apt to think more of effects than of causes, 
forgetting that but for the causes the effect would 
never have been. We value show above substance, 
forgetting that without the latter the former will 
soon die. 

It does not require an angel to see the mistake 
of all this. Behold the king of Babylon walking 



30 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



among his palaces and saying, " Is not this great 
Babylon, that I have built by the might of my 
power and for the glory of my majesty?" — when 
lo ! the splendid vision vanishes, and the dis- 
traught brain of the mighty king makes him seem 
but as a beast of the field. Or behold the man 
whom Jesus pictures, reclining on his costly couch 
and saying, " Soul, thou hast much goods laid 
up for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink, 
and be meriy," while already the fatal disease 
is developing within and the solemn fiat comes, 
" Thy soul shall be required of thee." The wor- 
ship of externals may well be called by Scripture, 
madness and folly. They change like the seasons. 
They vanish as day into night. They are only the 
dress of human life, the clothes we wear for a lit- 
tle while, the house in Avhich for a few years the 
spirit lives. The spirit is the reality. The man is 
more than his raiment. The character outlasts 
the reputation, and the soul the body. 

Heaven, I say, is not thus deceived. It sees as 
in panorama the shifting scenes of human history. 
It sees the houses of one generation crumbled 
and others built out of their stones ; the applause 
of one age dying before the forgetfulness or de- 
rision of the next ; the forms of human life melt- 
ing into others like the scenes of a dissolving 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



3 



picture, while from the ever-changing spectacle 
human spirits emerge into the light of the other 
world, bearing with them none of the drapery of 
earth, but stamped indelibly with qualities of 
mind and heart which are to belong to them 
forever. 

We say that in the presence of the angels of 
God there is known the worth of a human soul ; 
and with the illusions of earth corrected, two 
other facts must complete that knowledge. The 
one is the fact of immortality; the other is the 
capacity of every soul, as these must appear to 
them. 

To us the immortality of the soul is a faith ; to 
them it is a vision and a fact. They have not 
known death. They do not stand gaping as we 
do into the darkness of the grave. They realize 
the immortality of the soul as we cannot do. 
They see its destiny stretch out into endless 
ages. By reason of the little span of man's 
earthly existence we, on the other hand, fail to 
feel this authority, and because our faith in im- 
mortality is a faith and not a realization of it, 
it is hard to feel the lessons which it teaches. 
It is difficult to believe in the supreme worth of 
that which perishes from our sight after so short 
a term of being. Materialism cannot beHeve in 



32 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



the value of single lives. But heaven knows 
the truth. Angelic spirits know that spirits do 
not perish. They see that while the physical 
universe passes away, the souls which God has 
made He has made to live forever. They see 
that the future gives no promise of an end to 
any person. It is not an immortality of man 
that they see, but of men, each preserving his 
own for everlasting ages. It is not the immor- 
tality of spirit that they see, but of spirits. Per- 
sonality is immortal ; and as they gaze on this 
crowded world they realize that every human 
being will continue to exist when the entire frame- 
work of nature shall have changed its form, and 
when myriads of millenniums shall have passed 

by. 

But more, they realize the capacity as well as 
the immortality of the soul. Immortality with- 
out capacity would amount to nothing. It would 
be the immortality of an animal. It is the capac- 
ity of the soul which makes its immortality so 
full of significance. The spirits of the better 
world realize the capacity of the soul from what 
they themselves possess. A man who has a 
trained intellect, who has thought much and 
suffered some, who has known the world by 
observation and experience, looks at a little 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



33 



child with half sorrowful, half envious thought, 
as he reflects on the child's capacity for what 
it yet knows nothing of He wonders to what 
use these latent powers will be put. He won- 
ders what bitter sorrows the young, blooming 
mind will feel ; what marvelous thoughts will rise 
in that fertile brain ; for his own experience of 
life has taught him of what the mind of man 
is capable. 

How much more must they know who enjoy 
powers that we have not, but which we shall 
surely have ; and to whom the now dormant 
or budding capacity of the human soul is seen 
to contain infinite promises and pledges ! They 
know the souFs capacity for happiness through 
the attainment of a perfectly moral life and of 
the rapture which thrills themselves. They know 
its capacity for knowledge, of which the glimmer- 
ings of earthly scene and thought give trivial 
foregleams. They know, too, its capacity for 
suffering, and that the bitter trials of earth are 
a solemn warning to it of what, through greater 
losses and more bitter effects, it may endure. 
They know, in short, its capacity for growth 
that gives it supreme importance. They know 
that it can rise to God and join with themselves 
in His happy and glorious service. 

3 



34 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



Therefore I say they know the value of a soul. 
What we imagine, they see. What we try to be- 
lieve in, they behold as fact. On the soul of man 
these heavenly watchers and messengers fix their 
eye, — not on his rank or his wealth, not on his 
body or his circumstances, but on his soul, his 
personal inner life, his consciousness, for in that 
is the germ of his everlasting destiny. 

2. This being so, I suggest further that in the 
presence of the angels of God there is known the 
curse which sin brings to any soul under its 
power. To feel the curse of sin we, unfortunately, 
have to see it in its most revolting forms. We 
have to look at the drunkard in the gutter or at 
the home made desolate by the crimes of one 
member of the household. Even then we are 
inclined to half extenuate it. Perhaps we con- 
sider it simply disease. But the higher we our- 
selves rise in moral life the more clearly do we 
see its baleful powers, its deep roots, its clinging 
fetters, its essential character; until at last we 
are convinced that the Bible was not wrong in 
describing under this name something which is 
real and universal among men, and which con- 
stitutes the fatal source of all man's woes. But 
in what a light must sin, in even its mildest form, 
appear in the presence of the angels of God ! 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



35 



They know, for example, the mind of God 
Himself upon the subject and the principle of 
His government. Matters which to us are ques- 
tions of revelation are as plain as day to them. 
They are like statesmen who know the will of the 
sovereign and have made a study of govern- 
ment. They see the whole extent of the prob- 
lem which sin presents to the moral government 
of God. They reahze that if He were not to pun- 
ish it. His empire would fall to pieces. They know 
the extent of that empire, the necessity of uphold- 
ing truth and righteousness throughout all the 
worlds which constitute it, and that the moral 
Governor of the universe cannot permit rebellion 
to go unpunished in any of His creatures. We 
think it does not make much difference, that God 
can easily overlook such matters, that no great 
consequence will follow if we do transgress. So 
we often do in offences against human govern- 
ment, and perhaps thoughtlessly appeal to the 
pardoning power to release a criminal. But the 
magistrate and his advisers know that if law be 
not enforced it will fall into contempt, and that 
the integrity of the State rests upon its sanctity. 

So a child will fancy that disobedience to pa- 
rental law is a matter of small consequence. It 
may relate to but a trifling affair and the father's 



3^ 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



punishment may appear unduly harsh. But the 
parent knows that the principle of obedience must 
be upheld, both for the sake of the offender and 
for that of the family. If it be despised, the 
child will go from bad to worse, character will be 
ruined, and the home wrecked. So, I say, heaven 
knows the necessity of God's punishing sin. It 
may weep over the offenders ; it may long to 
save them ; but it sees clearly that God's govern- 
ment and God's nature require that sin, in any 
form, should meet its penalty. 

Moreover, the joy which the angels have in 
their holy life must make them reahze the horrible 
effects of sin. What loathing a pure mind feels 
for rank and black impurity ! Let any man of 
noble character come into close contact with a de- 
graded, polluted, sin-defiled wretch, and though 
he may long to save him, he cannot help turning 
in abhorrence from the spectacle itself Or, when 
a man has risen from the mire of shameful deeds 
and by dint of diligent self mastery and fellowship 
with Christ has attained a better life, with what 
disgust will he look back upon the slough in 
which he once wallowed ! ^ As we rise in charac- 
ter we see the baseness of that which is below us. 
As the tastes become refined we shudder that any 
debasing appetite is possible. Out of the joy of a 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



37 



pure, sweet and holy, and intelligent mind, we see 
the wretchedness of ignorance and crime. So 
must the angels of heaven feel. By the joy which 
they have in holiness, must they perceive the vile- 
ness of wrong, the depravity of sin, the misery and 
sorrow^ which are the dregs of the sinner's cup. 

Hence, I say, they know the curse of sin. 
Knowing the value of a soul, they know the 
awfulness of its position, if it be a sinful soul. 
Take any poor, degraded, battered specimen of 
humanity that you see arrested on the street 
and hurried to the police station ; and what will 
be your feeling if in it you recognize a member 
of a well-known, cultured family, who began life 
with bright hopes and fine abilities, and whose 
downward course has been the breaking of noble 
hearts ? Your thoughts will help you to understand 
the thoughts with which pure spirits of the better 
world look down on earth. They know the love 
of God, for they enjoy it themselves and under- 
stand what grief the sinner causes to his Father. 
They know the principles of God's government, 
and understand that even though He love He 
must punish the rebellious. They see the deepen- 
ing degradation of sin, the sinking of the soul into 
blacker depths. They see eternity waiting to 
carry out the sentence and to intensify the stain, 



38 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



immortality itself threatening to become a curse, 
and the very capacity of the soul only promising 
keener misery and unrelieved disgrace. Oh, could 
we see ourselves as Jesus says the heavenly spirits 
see us, how abashed we should be at the spectacle, 
and what a different estimate we too would take 
of the real reasons for rejoicing which may be 
found in this imperiled and distraught world ! 

3. But by the considerations which I have sug- 
gested, we may now enter fully into the Saviour's 
meaning when he said, "There is joy in the pres- 
ence of the angels of God over one sinner that 
repenteth.'^ For repentance is the crisis of a soul. 
See what it implies. 

It means that a man has wakened up to a sense 
of his moral danger. A glimmering of the light 
in which the angels live has reached his mind. 
He has roused himself from the lethargy and in- 
difference in which he has formerly lived. His 
eyes have been opened. He sees the immorality 
of sin, the godlessness of it, and by his un- 
destroyed faith in an almighty God he knows him- 
self to be in danger. He has been like a man 
sound asleep in a burning house, dreaming peace- 
fully of his wealth and his luxurious home, with 
pleasant visions flitting before his mind, the 
shadows of the still higher realities which he had 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



39 



thought himself to possess, and then is wakened 
roughly and suddenly to discover that his house 
is on fire, and his life in danger. Discoveries like 
this come to a man with the authority of a reve- 
lation. He can hardly tell how or why they come, 
but come they do, and with their coming all life 
changes its appearance. The mind wakes up. 
Old truth takes new power. Formal faiths become 
intense convictions. Such a discovery is implied 
in a man's repentance, and if the moral peril of a 
sinner be real, as Jesus says it is, the first step to 
safety consists in seeing it. 

Then repentance means that a man, being 
awakened to his danger, has had a debate within 
his soul concerning sin and righteousness. He 
may see his danger and yet not fly from it. 
Some men take fearful risks. They deliberately 
do wrong in the face of undeniable consequences. 
He who repents has done more. He has seriously 
debated within himself what he should do in 
view of his discovered danger, and in that debate 
his soul has stood at the crisis of his existence. 
I think that to watch a man at such a crisis is 
more intensely interesting than any scene in any 
chapter of human history can be. Behold him ! 
It is an immortal mind grappling with the ques- 
tion of its moral duty, and, by consequence, of 



40 THE SINLESS CHRIST 

its moral character! But though immortal it 
is not wholly free. It has long been used to sin. 
It is fettered by evil habits. Its sight of divine 
realities is dim. But it is deciding the supreme 
question of its being. Before it the two parties 
appear which contest the loyalty of every man. 
Conscience utters its imperious voice. Desire 
speaks in soft, luxurious tones. God calls ; sin 
pleads. Reason is divided. The will hesitates. 
Arguments rise from the depths of the pit clothed 
in fair words and specious doubts. Counter- 
arguments descend from heaven to meet them, 
and on the debate hangs the question of the 
godliness or the continued sinfulness of the soul. 
Does this not seem to you a thrilling moment, 
when a soul has resting upon it the responsi- 
bility of its future and hangs in the balance of 
its judgment? The mere fact that such an ex- 
perience is possible proves the soul to be greater 
than all of nature and in its essence akin to God, 
and the debate is more momentous than any 
other, though it be held in the forum of the most 
obscure life. 

But repentance means still more. It means 
that the soul has felt not only its danger but 
also the wickedness of its sin. There is a great 
difference between the two. No man repents who 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



41 



merely flies from danger. Repentance means 
sorrow for having acted as we have ; condemna- 
tion of our past principles ; regret based not on 
expediency or fear, but on conscience. But when 
a man thus condemns sin in himself, he shows 
a better nature already appearing. The divine 
Spirit is also working in him. His better self, 
his immortal conscience, is asserting itself In 
his self-condemnation he is coming to himself 
The experience is mortifying. It may be attended 
with upbraidings for the past and fears for the 
future. But it is the demonstration of life. It 
proves him to be not yet lost. In the sorrow for 
sin because it is sin we see the soul already be- 
coming renewed and testifying to its divine son- 
ship. 

Now, finally, repentance means that having 
been thus awakened to the danger and the 
wickedness of sin and having debated the ques- 
tion between God and his enemy, the soul has 
turned from sin, has condemned itself and its 
former master, has believed that God for Christ's 
sake will forgive and receive him, and has humbly 
turned to Him, again resolved to sin no more. 
This is the climax of the crisis. Behef must 
come, belief in God's forgiveness, belief in God's 
willingness to help it to a better life, belief in 



42 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



Christ as God's anointed Saviour for the sinner. 
The immortal soul turns again toward home. 
The prodigal rises and says, " I will go to my 
Father." The leper falls at His feet, exclaiming, 
" If Thou wilt. Thou canst make me clean." 

There is joy for angels and men in such a sight. 
It means that the lost child wants to feel his 
Father's kiss, that the immortal spirit of man is re- 
turning from its wanderings, and that another soul 
is saved. Oh, what are the victories of martial 
valor compared with such a victory as this ! What 
are the works of genius compared with this work 
of grace ! What emancipation can be compared 
with this emancipation of an immortal soul ! The 
Father cries, Bring forth the best robe, and put 
it on him ; . . . for this my son . . . was lost, 
and is found." No wonder Jesus says, " There 
is joy in the presence of the angels of God over 
one (aye, over even one) sinner that repenteth," 
for the crisis of an immortal soul has been turned, 
and the decision is for God. 

There is scarcely need of any application of 
this subject, yet I would have you who are Chris- 
tians learn from it to seek with new zeal and 
interest the salvation of your fellow-men. Warn 
them of their peril. Press the debate upon them. 
Point to them the sinfulness of sin. Do not 



\ 



THE CRISIS OF A SOUL 



43 



play the role of the prodigal's elder brother, 
but realize as angels do the value of a soul, the 
glory of a sinner's repentance. 

I would make a direct appeal to every one 
who is unreconciled to God. You must repent. 
You must face the question whether you will 
belong to God or to sin. You are a sinner in 
God's sight. You need a new heart, new princi- 
ples to live by, new hopes of the hereafter. There 
are blessed spirits waiting your decision. Christ 
Himself waits for it. On you I cast the responsi- 
bility of making it. If you have any faith in im- 
mortality, any sense of what your souls are capa- 
ble, any conception of the curse and ruin which 
sin is working in you ; if you have any ear to 
hear the words of the Son of God, " I came to 
call sinners to repentance," I pray you, while you 
may, to heed His summons and ask forgiveness 
from your God. " If we confess our sins, He is 
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to 
cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 



Ill 

CONFESSING CHRIST 



/ 



Ill 



CONFESSING CHRIST 

" Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess Me before men, 
him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God." 
— Luke xii. 8. 

We find this expression, or one like it, falling 
several times from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth, 
and more particularly as the opposition to Him 
increased and the critical period of His life drew 
near. He evidently felt it necessary to draw 
out by means of pubHc confession the vague, 
latent faith of such of His followers as might be 
true disciples. For He was forming the nucleus 
of His future Church. He did not expect to erect 
His kingdom while He was in the flesh. He 
knew that the little company of believers would 
be the agents by whom He would work His 
triumph. Hence to commit them fully to His 
cause was an object of prime importance. It 
was not enough to go to Him by night, with 
a half-doubting faith, and say, "We know that 
Thou art a teacher come from God." Nicodemus 
must face the Sanhedrin itself and confess his 

47 



48 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



faith. It was not enough to follow wiiii the 
crowd that thronged His journeys through 
Galilee. It was not enough to question with 
one's self, " Who is He ?" and " Is not this the 
Christ ?" or to seek from His beneficent touch 
healing for the body. All this interest and en- 
thusiasm would melt before the first heat of 
persecution like wax before the sun. It would 
not stand the strain of His absence. It was too 
selfish, too ignorant, too worldly. There must 
be gathered a band of public confessors to be 
taught and consecrated if the cause of Jesus 
was to advance to the salvation of the world. 

Yet we can appreciate the difficulty of such 
a public avowal at that time. The Saviour was 
so different from what tradition and custom 
had expected in the Christ. The opposition of 
the chief priests and Pharisees, to whom the 
nation had been wont to look for religious 
guidance, was pronounced against Him. His 
own life, too, seemed shrouded in mystery and 
leading into darkness. He did not explain all 
His ideas. To follow Him was like entering on 
an unknown way. He Himself plainly intimated 
that it would lead through peril and perhaps 
to death. There was truly need that He should 
set over against this requirement of public con- 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



49 



fession the glowing promise recorded in our 
text. The Saviour felt this, and hence connected 
salvation itself with open confession of His 
name. 

He did not, of course, mean thereby the mere 
confession of the lips. He did not ask for the 
huzzahs of the multitude, such as were heard 
later on when He crossed Olivet in triumph. 
The confession of Judas was as little a real con- 
fession as the denial of Peter was a real denial. 
He meant such a confession as the leper's, when 
he knelt at His feet, saying, " Lord if Thou 
wilt Thou canst make me clean " ; such as the 
woman's, who, in Simon's house, anointed Him 
with her precious ointment ; such as that of 
Bartimaeus, the man that was born blind ; such 
as Peter's — "Thou art the Christ, the Son of 
the living God" — to which Jesus answered, 
Upon this rock I will build My Church." Such 
a confession made under such circumstances was 
the very voice of God Himself in the human 
heart witnessing to His Son, — and of such it 
was that Jesus said, " Whosoever shall confess 
Me before men, him shall the Son of man also 
confess before the angels of God." 

We are presented, therefore, with the duty 
and privilege of confessing Christ before men. 

4 



50 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



Change of circumstances has not made the duty- 
less urgent nor taken away the promise. Indeed 
we can hardly say that the circumstances have 
changed. The world is no less now than then 
hostile in spirit to the Son of man. The tradi- 
tions and customs of daily life, and many of the 
world's most famous men, are as pronounced in 
opposition to Him as were the Pharisees of old. 
To follow Jesus still seems often like entering 
on an unknown and perilous w^ay. Therefore 
the need of open, positive, avowed, committed, 
consecrated faith is as great as ever, and we have 
no hesitation in saying that the words of our text 
are as truly directed to the men of this day and 
place as to the half-interested, half-doubting mul- 
titude to which they were first spoken. 

I. I would like you to observe with me the 
object we are required to confess: "Whosoever 
shall confess J/6\" So we read wherever the 
phrase occurs ; and it is a fair example of the de- 
mands which Jesus always made on His disciples. 
I need not remind you that the burden of Christ's 
teaching was about Himself ; not, indeed, to ex- 
plain to His hearers the mystery of His own be- 
ing, or to show them how He could be both Son 
of God and Son of man, — that doubtless is a prob- 
lem which we could not understand even if He 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



51 



explained it to us, — but so to work miracles and 
lay down doctrines, live in obedience to God, 
and, withal, to drop such expressions about Him- 
self and His origin and His destiny, that His 
hearers would feel that the thing which He 
wanted them to do was simply to believe on Him 
as the Saviour and obey and serve Him. It is 
most remarkable how Jesus maintained, through- 
out, this position. Other men publish systems 
of truth and ask that we shall follow their dem- 
onstrations and accept their conclusions. Others 
still declare themselves advocates and representa- 
tives of a cause, and ask that we should join 
with them on the ground of its inherent justice. 
But Jesus put Himself forward as the object of 
men's faith. He said, "I am the truth." He said, 
" I am the way and the life." By so doing He 
proclaimed Himself more than a teacher sent 
from God, more than a Moses or a Joshua sent 
to lead mankind into the promised land. He 
said in effect, " I am the promised land. I am 
the truth itself" The proud French king, tramp- 
ling under his heel the liberties of his country, 
exclaimed, " I am the state." Here, without 
the pride, but with greater dignity, not in the 
spirit of egotism, but because in this universe 
all things that are good and true are embodied 



52 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



in God, and because man's highest duty is to 
obey God, Jesus, who was God manifest in the 
flesh, said, " I am the Hght of the world : he that 
followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall 
have the light of life." " This is the condemna- 
tion, that hght is come into the world, and men 
loved darkness rather than light, because their 
deeds were evil." " Whosoever shall confess Me 
before men, him shall the Son of man also con- 
fess before the angels of God." 

But while we can easily recognize this fact in 
the earthly life of Christ, it is continually forgotten 
so far as the present duties of this world are con- 
cerned, and I would like to impress on you again 
the simple object of true Christian confession. 
You will see what is meant by reflecting that we 
are not asked to confess a human creed or a the- 
ology. It is indeed inevitable that every thinking 
believer will have more or less of a theology and 
some kind of a creed. I suppose the opposite 
would be to presume mental stagnation. It would 
imply that faith is the destruction of thought, 
whereas, on the contrary, faith is a new starting 
point for thought. It raises new questions and it 
puts us in the right attitude to answer at least some 
of them. I do not see how an intelligent believer 
can help having some kind of a theology. His 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



53 



confidence in Christ will compel him to take cer- 
tain views of God and of his own soul, which will 
develop as he thinks and grows, and which will 
also tend to a more or less definite creed. Hence 
we should find no fault with the Church for having 
a theology and for producing creeds. These are 
but the result of her study of the divine word, 
the product of the attacks to which she has been 
exposed and the periods of growth through which 
she has passed. We believe, moreover, that the 
Spirit of Christ is with His people, still guiding 
them into all truth ; and that with the progress of 
time clearer views of God's revelation have been 
and may be expected to be enjoyed. 

Yet salvation does not hinge upon this fact. 
Not all can carry out consequences logically. Not 
all will draw the same inferences. So the divine 
Master leads us back to the fountain head and bids 
us drink of its pure waters. Our faith is funda- 
mentally and only faith in Him, — and our con- 
fession is the confession of Him. We simply say 
with Peter, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
living God." We say with John, " Behold the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the 
world." If we do this sincerely, we have in us the 
substance of Christianity. If we confess this we 
draw the line distinctly between belief and unbelief. 



54 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



We ought to introduce here a recognition of 
the fact that we must have definite views about 
Christ. We cannot beHeve Him a mere man — 
only such views as are consistent with loving Him, 
not only, but trusting to His present power and 
authority. We accept righteousness as our law, 
God as our Father, God's power as our hope, 
God's revelation as our light. We ought not, 
indeed, to do this with the idea that nothing else 
is to be beheved, unless indeed we are wiUing not 
only to enter the kingdom as children but also to 
remain " babes in Christ " forever. We are to 
strive after deeper and wider Christian knowledge. 
But with that fine perception of the needs of hu- 
man life which Jesus always showed He presented 
Himself alone the germ, the foundation, the 
fountain head of Christianity, and claimed from 
mankind loyal confession of faith in Him. 

So, on the other hand, we are not asked to pro- 
fess personal goodness. Here again we should 
make a similar caution to that which pertains to 
the matter of belief For acceptance of Christ is 
the germ of holiness. It is the turning point of 
a man's character, from which he ever journeys 
nearer to his God. The Lord did not by any 
means intend to hinge salvation on mere belief 
apart from its effect on the heart. Your faith 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



55 



is a moral as well as an intellectual act. It is the 
foundation of love to God, of likeness to God, of 
that holiness without which no man shall see the 
Lord. So it is described by the apostles as faith 
which purifies the heart and overcomes the world. 
Let a man accept and follow Christ and he must 
be led to God. We utterly repudiate the idea 
that men will be saved whether they are bad or 
good, if only they believe, or that it is possible 
for a conscious hypocrite to find his way through 
the pearly gates. But from this it does not follow 
that in confessing Christ we confess our own good- 
ness. Quite the contrary. We confess our sin- 
fulness, which needs the atoning blood of the Son 
of God. We confess our helplessness, which needs 
the power of Jesus to make us like Himself We 
confess that we are poor and miserable and blind, 
that we are sinners by nature and by act, but, 
resting on His promise, we believe that Christ is 
able and willing to save all those that come unto 
God by Him. 

Thus, you see, the confession demanded is 
neither the assertion of great knowledge nor of 
great goodness. It neither claims to understand 
mysteries nor to have reached the goal of charac- 
ter. It has nothing of the spirit of the Pharisee 
in it. It does not say, " God, I thank Thee, that I 



56 



HE SINLESS CHRIST 



am not as other men are." It is the humblest 
thing in the world, all the humbler as it is more 
sincere. It is the cry of the publican, " God be 
merciful to me a sinner." But it fastens itself 
upon Christ as the Rock of safety, the God-built 
fortress for imperiled souls, the sacrifice for sin, 
and then proclaims, " He is my confidence and 
my hope." 

Let me pause here to emphasize this truth. 
The Church labors under the continual imputa- 
tion of the world, that it professes to know more 
than it does and to be better than it is. Men are 
held off from its communion by their unwilling- 
ness to make any profession of character or by 
the sense of their own ignorance. We are told 
that the inconsistencies of Christians shame their 
profession. In one sense they do, but in another 
they do not. If it be meant that the Christian 
claims to be above inconsistencies, then certainly 
the objection is false and vain. I have no wish to 
excuse the faults of believers. We all are ready to 
exclaim, " We have strayed from Thy ways like 
lost sheep." But when we see men smothering 
their faith, and holding in check their better im- 
pulses, letting themselves be counted with the 
world when they ought to be counted with the 
Church, then, indeed, we feel Hke reminding them 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



57 



that they also are required, as the condition of 
Christ's salvation of them, to confess Him before 
men. You are asked for no confession of 
theology, important as a creed may be, and I 
like to think that our Church, while she is sup- 
posed to lay much stress on her doctrine, opens 
in a truly Christlike way her portals to the world, 
asking not even adherence to her own particular 
doctrines, but simply asking genuine faith in 
Jesus Christ. You are asked for no profession 
of goodness, important as it is to be good, but 
you are asked to confess Christ as your Lord and 
Saviour. That is enough to begin with. It puts 
you on God's side. It puts you on the side of 
holiness. If it be genuine, it means an utter 
change of the natural bent of your wills. It 
means a religious life, based on trust in Jesus as 
your only and all-sufficient Saviour. 

Here are two candidates. Your suffrage can 
show your political views. Here are two theories 
of life. Your adherence to the one or the other 
shows the moral state of your soul. It is the old 
choice between Jehovah and Baal ; between God 
and evil ; between Christ and the world. With 
marvelous simplicity, and yet with a skill which 
always anticipated the final judgment, Jesus put 
Himself forth as the object of our confession, 



58 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



knowing well that if a man honestly confesses 
Him, that man is already on the way to all truth 
and to all holiness. 

2. So much for the object of this confession ; 
let me call your attention next to the manner of 
it. This is given us in the words " before men." 
In other words, it is to be in public. This is 
absolutely essential to it. Otherwise it would be 
no confession at all. This is the difference be- 
tween faith and confession. The latter is the 
expression of the former. The very point before 
us is that we are not to hide the truth away in 
our hearts nor whisper it under our breath in 
prayer, are not to cherish one principle in our 
souls and publish another with our lips. No 
man," said Jesus, " when he hath Hghted a candle, 
putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, 
but on a candlestick, that they which come in 
may see the light." He seems to imply by this 
form of expression that in religious matters men 
are guilty of just such folly. Not a few lights 
are burned in secret. " Let your light so shine 
before men," said Jesus, " that they may see your 
good works, and glorify your Father which is in 
heaven." 

But let us ask more particularly. What is the 
need of this ? Why may we not be hke Nice- 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



59 



demus, a disciple in the dark? Surely it is possi- 
ble to cherish religious faith without parading it 
before one's fellow-men. Is it not a matter 
solely between the individual soul and God ? I 
think we appreciate the reasons which deter not a 
few from obeying this direct command of Christ's. 
It is felt by some that they have much as yet to 
think and learn about in connection with religion. 
There are important questions which they have 
not solved. There are practical problems, too, 
about which they do not yet feel sure. They ask 
more time before such a vital step shall be taken. 
Others, doubtless, are waiting until they are 
better. I doubt not that in many cases there is 
the knowledge of some particular habit or secret 
fault which they are not willing to abandon, and 
which is the real cause of their delay, though 
others may be alleged. They would wait till the 
more sober period of middle life has come, when 
character will have been settled and when there 
will be little danger of later regret. I speak of 
those who in their hearts cherish the belief that 
they are Christians, and to whom some phase of 
doctrine, some practical habit, seems too great a 
barrier for them to cross. It is with them that I 
plead to-day the duty of confession. 

We plead it, first, for their own sakes. We are 



6o 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



ready to admit, indeed, that a man may be a 
Christian though out of the Church. God forbid 
that we should limit the flow of His grace to any 
certain channels or that we should ignore the evi- 
dence of godly lives wherever it may be shown. 
But we believe nevertheless that a belief which is 
held in secret is not likely to benefit the believer 
as it would do if it were expressed. An idea 
which you cannot put into words is certainly a 
very vague and useless one to you. An opinion 
which you conceal from others is not likely to 
have its due influence upon you. Especially is 
this true as to moral and religious ideas, which 
from their very nature demand the right to govern 
your conduct and control your life. If you 
keep them hermetically sealed in the closet of 
your heart they will not control you. They will 
not make the man of you that they might make. 
You cannot expect to enjoy the power and the 
beauty of the gospel unless you are outspoken in 
your acceptance of it, and so commit yourself 
altogether to its keeping. 

Then, having staked your all upon it, you will 
value it at its true worth. Let a man invest a 
few dollars quietly in some rather promising en- 
terprise which is at the same time quite inde- 
pendent of his proper business, and while he 



CONFESSING CHRIST 6i 



may be interested in it to the extent of his in- 
vestment, he will not care much whether it suc- 
ceed or fail. But let him invest his whole fortune 
and his name in the enterprise, and then he will 
live for it. He will develop all its resources. He 
will work its whole worth. Let a man, in like 
manner, be openly and publicly on Christ's side, 
and he will discover in Christ power and beauty, 
truth and joy, which he never would have sus- 
pected if he had merely cherished in his secret 
thoughts a vague belief You cannot expect to 
reap a great harvest from a little plot of ground. 

But we plead the duty of publicly confessing 
Christ also for the sake of others. You will 
remember how the Lord said, " He that is not 
with Me is against Me : and he that gathereth 
not with Me scattereth." I know that He also 
said, " He that is not against us is for us," and 
we recognize the latter truth in the fact that in 
many ways Christianity is sustained even by forces 
which do not belong to her, — by the needs of 
society, by the common respect and sympathy 
of a large portion of mankind. But the former 
truth is equally valid and, as Christ intimates, 
relates chiefly to the personal relation which men 
sustain to Him. Society will often be for religion, 
but against Christ, for a system and a code and 



62 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



a cultus, but against a personal religious life. 
This latter is the point before us now, and we see 
it illustrated by every glance we take over the 
community without. For every man, like Peter 
after Pentecost, casts his shadow on the society 
about him. He exerts influence in proportion to 
his wealth or reputation. We all live " before 
men," and we feel it more often than we feel our- 
selves to live before God. The world is near and 
tangible. It receives impressions as well as gives 
them. It counts with quick mathematical ac- 
curacy the adherents of each cause. And why 
is it, though society is called Christian, that the 
current of society is so often away from godli- 
ness, if not because there are so many who refuse 
positively to confess and obey their faith ? 

We say then to those who withhold their al- 
legiance that they are swelling the numbers of 
the opposing host. Each counts one on the other 
side. Their children usually draw the inference 
quickly enough. They are often without the 
faith as well as the confession. The omission 
of such a duty is stronger than the hidden faith 
can be. Actions speak louder than words. No 
man who refuses to let it be known that he is 
on Christ's side but must sadly reflect that a 
world which much needs every help it can 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



63 



toward God is finding in him, so far as his in- 
fluence goes, and all the more if he be a correct 
and honorable man, an excuse for its worse 
neglect and real unbelief of the only Saviour. 

Then we plead for confession for Christ's sake. 
I do not see how there can be in a man very- 
much gratitude for what Jesus has done for him 
if he be not willing to own and serve his Lord. 
Certainly Christ does not care for mere honor; 
and yet we are the worse if we do not render 
it. One would think that a man would be 
ashamed of himself to cherish in his heart faith 
in Jesus and then to reflect that he had not done 
his part in witness-bearing. The apostles them- 
selves must have felt humiliated when they saw 
Jesus crucified and remembered their own de- 
sertion of Him. It is scarcely possible that the 
Spirit of Christ has touched at all deeply the 
soul that is not willing, yea, that is not glad, to 
declare to the world its faith in Him. 

''Yet," some one will say, '*it is possible to do 
all this without making what is commonly called 
a profession of religion." Now we admit that the 
first and all-important way of publicly confessing 
Christ is by the daily life. Let it not be supposed 
that in our zeal for the ordinances of religion we 
forget the greater ordinances of daily life. In fact, 



64 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



the duty laid down by Jesus must be thus per- 
formed or not at all. The real public confession 
is that which we make before our townsfolk and 
acquaintances. Our text means confessing Christ 
in your business. Business ought to be conducted 
in a rehgious way, as well as religion in a business 
way. Many a man knows the temptation not to 
confess Christ when by dishonesty, or sharpness, 
or the like, he could make money. Would that 
every Christian business record were what it ought 
to be ! I fear men do not realize the moral in- 
fluence of their commercial standing. They might 
thus bear a testimony to Christ which would ac- 
tually save immortal souls. 

So, too, our text means confessing Christ in 
your recreations and in your homes. A true con- 
fessor will take more pleasure in his confession 
than in any amusement that the world loves. 
Religion is not opposed to enjoyment. It is not a 
thing of tears and sobs or of ascetic life. But 
they who indulge in all the world's gayety, and 
who at the same time do little or nothing for the 
world's salvation, surely do not hold out a very 
bright light, by seeing which men may glorify their 
Father in the heavens. Christ proclaims work as 
greater than pleasure, the mind and the soul as 
greater than the body, spiritual things as worth 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



65 



more than the joys which now are and to-morrow 
have faded, and His confessors must testify by their 
lives to these truths. They must not count them- 
selves nor let themselves be counted with the 
world's people. Hence we say that the daily life 
is the best pubHc confession of Christ. But if so, 
then why not add to it confession of Him in and 
with the Church ? Obviously no man who does 
thus confess Him in the daily life would hesitate, 
except in a few very peculiar cases, to confess Him 
among His people, and every case of such hesita- 
tion only shows that the excuse by which such 
hesitation is condoned is a mere excuse. The fact 
is, however, that a formal avowal of faith in Jesus 
is necessary in order to complete the testimony of 
your life. Without that of the life, formal con- 
fession would be indeed vain ; but without it, the 
life is apt to fall below the mark. It will seal your 
life. It will commit you beyond retraction to the 
service of God, and this is what you need. 

As things now are, your service is worth little. 
Then it will be worth double what it now is. It 
will open to you the real joy and power of Chris- 
tian life, and you will feel that you are in closer 
sympathy with Him who in the presence of Pilate 
and the Jews witnessed His good confession. Oh, 
let us have done with the mistake of thinking that 
5 



66 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



we can serve Christ just as well in secret as in 
public! We can serve Him perhaps, but not just 
as well. In the majority of cases we will be 
guilty of hiding our talent in a napkin and of 
putting our light under a bushel. The battle 
between Christ and His foes is too pubHc, the 
issues are too sharp for secret allegiance. The 
world's needs are too great, aye, your own peril 
is too great. Let the world know your faith, 
and by declaring it, prove that it is more than a 
mere human opinion, prove it to be rather the 
Spirit of Jesus witnessing through you to the 
name and truth of God. 

3. Let us now turn to notice the reward. 
" Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him 
shall the Son of man also confess before the 
angels of God." You will notice the perfect 
parallel between the duty and the reward. On 
the one hand, as our confession of Christ is per- 
sonal, so will be His confession of us. There is 
no man who honors Christ that Christ will not 
honor. This is but part of the general truth, that 
we are to stand before God as individuals. The 
Bible tells of a personal judgment. Every one 
of us shall give account of himself to God." It 
speaks Hkewise of a personal protection exercised 
by God over His people. " I am poor and needy ; 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



67 



yet the Lord thinketh upon me." The Almighty 
does not govern us merely by general laws. He 
has in mind the personal welfare of each child, 
and in and through the laws His hand touches 
and guides them. It is the peerless beauty of 
our religion that it constitutes such a personal 
relation, so that in every moment of our lives 
we may say, as Jesus said before His death, 
" Father, I come to Thee." 

So after this manner will the confessor be con- 
fessed. Christ said, " I know My sheep, and 
am known of Mine." The apostle says, " Every 
man shall have his praise, his own peculiar and 
appropriate praise of God." Not in a mass, not 
as a church, but as individuals, will Jesus, our 
Advocate, acknowledge His own. I think this 
gives added force to the duty of confessing Him. 
We should long then to have His mark upon 
us, and we ought to be willing to wear that mark 
now. We should be glad then to be distinct 
from the sinful world ; we ought to be glad to be 
distinct now. By all the hope we have then of 
the personal acknowledgment of Jesus, we ought 
to rejoice now to acknowledge Him by life and 
word. 

Then, on the other hand, as our confession of 
Christ is public, so will be His confession of us. 



68 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



I like to think of some obscure child of God, 
whose testimony to his Lord the world despised, 
crowned before angels and men with the appro- 
bation of the Son of God. The day is coming 
in which the wretched judgments that are dictated 
by pride and wealth shall be reversed, and when 
the honor shall be given to those who have been 
faithful to the Crucified. We expect not with 
pride, for it will be no testimony to our righteous- 
ness, but it will set honor now on Him whom 
now we serve. It will be the vindication of truth 
and right. It will be the glory of Christ in the 
glory of His Church, and the living creatures 
and the elders above the throne will say " Amen " 
when Christ pronounces His confession in testi- 
mony of its justice and truth. 

There is contained in all this a terrible warn- 
ing which our Lord goes on to state in the verse 
which follows. Only those whom Christ con- 
fesses will enter the everlasting mansions, while 
whosoever denieth Him before men, him shall 
the Son of man deny before the angels of God. 
Thus, confession is salvation, not, let me repeat, 
the mere confession of the lips or the creed, — for 
" not every one," said Jesus, " that saith unto Me, 
Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven ; but he that doeth the will of My Father 



CONFESSING CHRIST 



69 



which is in heaven," — but the confession of the 
life and Hps, for, " with the heart man beHeveth 
unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confes- 
sion is made unto salvation." 

Open, avowed, public confession is what Jesus 
asks. He cannot look with favor on the faith 
that refuses to acknowledge Him, any more than 
on the confession which is insincere. He cannot 
be pleased to see men paltering with the truths 
of His word, associating with the hosts of His 
redeemed, but not joining in their toils and pray- 
ers, hiding what faith and love and hope they 
have in the darkness of their own souls. With 
all the added emphasis which comes from a sense 
of the world's need and of your own need, I speak 
this message to you to-day. Do not remain, I 
implore you, in perpetual doubt. Do not remain 
palsied and half blind. Do not imagine religion 
to be a sentiment that you can grow in your 
hothouse, but not expose to the common air. 
If what you call your religion will not stand such 
exposure, in truth's name let it die. For your 
own sakes, for the world's sake, for Christ's sake, 
if you have faith, dare to say so. I would stand 
to-day, like Moses in the camp of Israel, and cry, 
" Who is on the Lord's side ? Let him gird on 
his armor and take his sword and come forth 



70 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



to the battle." Let him show his colors — for 
the words of our text ring like a clamor to action : 
" Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him 
shall the Son of man also confess before the 
angels of God." 



IV 

SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



IV 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 

" And he said unto them, Out of the eater came forth meat, and 
out of the strong came forth sweetness." — Judges xiv. 14. 

It is really quite difficult for us to rouse much 
admiration for Samson. Looked at from the dis- 
tance at which we live from him, and from the 
height of culture to which we have attained, he 
appears like a mere Jewish Hercules, a gigantic 
development of muscle without any corresponding 
powers of mind or character. We do not read of 
his having done anything which impresses us as 
either wise or noble. He appears in our eyes a 
mere manslayer, a rude, coarse, sensual brute, 
though somewhat witty and courageous, playing 
his bloody pranks upon the Philistines with the 
jollity of a sportsman ; joking with them while 
plotting their destruction ; and combining with his 
mighty physical strength the most depraved ani- 
mal passions. The only quality about him that 
we would call a virtue was his total abstinence, 
and yet he is continually reminding us that even 
total abstinence does not make a man a saint. 

73 



74 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



It is not strange that many a modern reader of 
the Bible should stumble over the story of Sam- 
son and ask how it is possible to believe that such 
a man was really raised up by God to do such 
work and live such a life. There is, however, a 
very simple principle which helps us to meet this 
difficulty, a principle in accordance with which 
the whole Bible is constructed. That is, that if 
God would make a revelation. He must do it in 
language or other symbols of thought which those 
to whom the revelation is given can understand. 
If you wish to explain anything to a child, you do 
not read him the definition given of it in Webster's 
Unabridged Dictionary, but you use short and 
familiar words, and you point him to some specific 
example, which has come within the limited 
range of his experience, from which he can grasp 
your idea. Even so, you do not suppose for a 
moment that the child has fully grasped your 
thought. All you hope to do is to give him some 
idea of what you mean which will serve his pur- 
pose until his mind has grown and he is able to 
take in the whole truth. In accordance with this 
recognized principle has God proceeded in the 
communication of His thought and will to men. 

Any other principle would have made a rev- 
elation impossible, for it could never have been 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



75 



apprehended. If in the childhood of the world 
He had revealed the finished truths which we may 
learn from the Bible as a whole, He would have 
acted as uselessly as a teacher would do who 
would start little children to learn EucHd before 
they have mastered the multiplication table, or to 
read Mill's Logic before they have studied the 
alphabet. The whole Bible illustrates the way in 
which little by little the mind of the Hebrews was 
led forward toward the ideal of truth and char- 
acter which Jesus finally disclosed. But on the 
way you must ever expect to find merely move- 
ment toward the ideal, not its attainment; and you 
must estimate each particular phase of the history 
in the light of the specific circumstances in which 
it appears and the particular purpose it was meant 
to serve. 

If, then, we apply this principle to the story of 
Samson, we are to remember the condition of Is- 
rael when he lived. They were a half-civilized 
nation of mountaineers, a collection of tribes with- 
out any central government, scattered along the 
hills of Palestine. There was but little serious 
observance of the Mosaic laws and ritual, while 
at the same time Jehovah was held to be their 
national Deity and invisible King, and the ark and 
the priesthood at Shiloh were reminders of the 



76 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



God whom their fathers had served centuries be- 
fore. The times of the Judges in Israel were 
times of lawlessness and confusion so great that 
only the estabHshment of David's monarchy saved 
the state from destruction and the reHgion of 
Moses from oblivion. In particular, the moral 
life of the Hebrews had sadly deterioriated. Mul- 
titudes had gone after the gods of the Phihstines 
and those impure Phoenician deities whose worship 
was an infamy, w^hose service was open sin. The 
whole nation was corrupted by these associations 
and, as might be expected, fell a prey to their 
heathen neighbors. For forty years the Hebrews 
were subject to the Philistines. The spectacle 
presented is that of utter weakness, — weakness as 
a nation, weakness as a reHgion, weakness as a 
people, and as individuals. All seemed to be go- 
ing to destruction, and the reason Avas that Israel 
had forsaken God and did not observe His law. 

Now, to make them reahze just this one truth, 
that in God was their strength, does Samson ap- 
pear to have been raised up. He was consecrated 
to Jehovah from his birth, and his abstinence from 
wine and his uncut hair were the signs of his con- 
secration. God endowed him with supernatural 
strength so long as he kept his Nazarite vow. In 
his personal character he shared all the vices and 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



77 



follies of his race and age. He was morally weak, 
just as they were weak. He delighted in adven- 
ture as a true mountaineer. He froHcked with 
danger like a genuine barbarian. But he was 
gigantically strong in body so long as he kept his 
vow. The country rang with the fame of his ex- 
ploits. The Philistine oppressors trembled at his 
coming. What did he make them realize ? Sim- 
ply this, that God could give strength to those 
who kept His law. The truth was presented in a 
way which the rude marauders of both Judaea and 
Philistia would feel. Had he been a man of lofty 
spiritual character the lesson would not have been 
as impressive. Jehovah can give supernatural 
strength to those who observe His vows. The 
inference was, Let Israel obey Him, and she too 
will become strong again. In proportion as her 
obedience grows will her strength and power 
grow. If by obedience to the mere vow of the 
Nazarite Samson was invincible, how invincible, 
as a nation and as a church, might Israel be- 
come if obedient to the whole moral law which 
God had given her. By the happy though un- 
natural strength of this Nazarite were the Hebrews 
taught to stand in reverence before Jehovah, and 
to seek for help again in Him by disobeying whom 
all their disasters had been brought about. 



78 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



For the same reason, no doubt, has the stor}^ 
of Samson been preserved to us. We are not 
called upon to admire his character. He is no 
hero for us to imitate. He simply crystallizes, in 
his titanic figure, the idea of strength through 
obedience to God, and it is for us to apply this 
truth with that broader knowledge of what obedi- 
ence consists in, and the finer ideal of what divine 
strength really is, which has been taught by one 
of which Samson, in his rude, fierce way, was to 
his own age an impressive type. 

Now with this understanding of the significance 
of the man, I wish to call your attention to the 
somewhat singular account of the riddle which he 
proposed to his Philistine companions. It will be 
found, I think, to have a deeper meaning than even 
they guessed or Samson intended, or than lies upon 
the surface of the narrative. The young giant was 
on his way to Timnath, a Philistine city, in company 
with his parents, going thither to see the woman 
whom he desired to make his wife. In the region 
between Dan and the seacoast wild beasts were 
plentiful, and it chanced that a young hon sprang 
from his lair on the travelers. But as if it had 
been a kid, Samson seized the beast and without a 
weapon in his hand rent it into pieces. He said 
nothing of the adventure even to his parents ; but 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



79 



on the way back he sought the carcass of the lion 
and found that a swarm of bees had hived in it, 
and from the strange storehouse he took honey 
for himself and his parents. He seems to have 
seen in this incident a sort of omen of good for- 
tune. Probably he said to himself, " As out of 
this lion honey has been brought forth, so out of 
the hated Philistines, who would tear Israel to 
pieces, shall there come by me a sweet blessing to 
my people." At any rate, when, a short time 
later, his wedding-feast was being celebrated in 
Timnath, he proposed, in accordance with the cus- 
tom in ancient times, this riddle to his Philistine 
guests and acquaintances. " Out of the eater," 
said he, " came forth meat, and out of the strong 
came forth sweetness. If ye can certainly declare 
it me within the seven days of the feast, and 
find it out, then I will give you thirty sheets and 
thirty change of garments." Of course they did 
not know the answer. At last they forced his 
bride to coax the answer from him, and on the 
last day of the wedding-feast they gave him their 
reply. " What is sweeter than honey ? What is 
stronger than a lion ?" said they. Samson knew 
that his wife had been false to him and that the 
story of his adventure was out. Then with a dar- 
ing quite as notable as that with which he had 



8o 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



killed the lion, he hurried to Ashkelon, another 
Philistine city, and soon returned with the gar- 
ments of thirty men whom he had slain, with 
which he redeemed his pledge. 

The story reads at first hke mere rude jesting 
and bloody sport. It is clear, however, that 
under cover of his riddle Samson meant to in- 
timate to his foes themselves the defiance that was 
already burning within him. In the honey from 
the carcass of the Hon which he had slain he had 
seen a divine omen of the blessing that was to 
come even out of the oppressor of Israel, and 
with the recklessness which was part of his char- 
acter he intimated vaguely even to the wedding 
guests what they and their countrymen might 
expect from him. He was going to tear this 
Philistine lion in pieces and gather from its slain 
carcass honey for his people Israel ; and the thirty 
men, lying dead at Ashkelon, were but the begin- 
ning of the slaughter which would befall her 
foes. 

So far the story. But is this all the meaning of 
Samson's riddle ? Does the whole worth of the 
story end with the Danite's fierce sport with his 
enemies ? Is this narrative nothing but the record 
of a barbarous jest ? Recall what, as I have tried 
to show, Samson represents. What was he in- 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



8i 



tended to teach his own age? What is he in- 
tended to teach us ? This, and this alone : that 
strength comes through obedience to God. Re- 
membering that Samson's riddle acquires a deeper 
significance, deeper, no doubt, than the author of 
it understood, but a significance which makes it 
worth our consideration as the incident itself 
would not be. It seems to me, indeed, to utter 
what we may call the great riddle of human life, 
the strangest fact which falls under the observa- 
tion of men, the enigma which they are continu- 
ally forced to solve, and the solution of which lies 
in that truth which in his coarse, emphatic way, 
Samson represented. Let me show you what I 
mean. 

The riddle is, " Out of the eater came forth 
meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." 
That is to say, out of that which seems to consume 
and destroy have come forth nourishment and sup- 
port; out of that which appears oppressive and 
terrible have come forth benediction and happiness. 
Is not this strange enough to be called a riddle, 
and yet is it not the riddle of human life, the fact 
which on every side confronts us ? 

I might show, for example, that the difficulties 
which we have to overcome in the pursuit of our 
most cherished projects are the means of our 

6 



82 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



highest growth and greatest usefulness. This is 
so even in the sphere of common secular life. A 
man whose pathway is smooth and sunny and 
strewn with flowers does not usually reach as high 
a level of character as the one whose way is 
rough and dark and full of pitfalls. There are more, 
I honestly believe, who go wrong through having 
too many so-called blessings than there are who 
go wrong because life is too hard for them. Very 
few indeed are they who do not meet lions in the 
way, to whom Hfe is not a struggle, if not with 
outward obstacles, at least with inward ones ; and 
when a child of fortune does appear he is very 
apt to end as a child of misery. But the over- 
coming of obstacles makes the muscles of the 
human spirit strong and well developed. Conflict 
makes good soldiers. Wresting victory from the 
unwilling hands of destiny makes the enjoyment 
of it keener and leaves the victor strong for fresh 
enterprises. 

Stanley has lately written these words, which 
are worth noting as coming from the pen of 
one who has braved the dangers of the African 
forest and come out a hero. He says, " The bigger 
the work, the greater the joy in doing it. That 
whole-hearted striving and wrestling with diffi- 
culty, the laying hold with firm grip and level 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



83 



head and calm resolution of the monster, and tug- 
ging and toiling and wrestling at it, to-day, to- 
morrow, and the next, until it is done, — it is the 
soldier's creed of forward, ever forward ; it is the 
man's faith that for this task he was born." Such, 
too, has always been the testimony of those who 
have accomplished great things in life. Edmund 
Burke, that philosophic statesman, says, " Diffi- 
culty is a severe instructor set over us by the 
supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian who 
knows us better than we know ourselves, as He 
loves us better too. He that wrestles with us 
strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill ; our 
antagonist is our helper." 

It has been by hard work, by the bitter experi- 
ence of failures, by learning the lessons of dis- 
appointment, by profiting from mistakes, that the 
strong men of history have become what they 
were. The thinkers whose words have molded 
the beliefs of men have wrestled with doubt and 
grappled with the problems of thought through 
many a painful hour before they have climbed to 
the position where they can speak and make men 
hear. The orators to whose speech multitudes 
have listened and who have seemed to have at 
their command every faculty of persuasion and 
argument have had to blunder and fail a hundred 



84 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



times before acquiring their skill. And the men 
who climb to the zenith of commercial success 
have had first in many instances to toil, watch, 
learn, and struggle, till the secret of success was 
won. We do not hesitate to say that difficulty is 
man's best friend. It calls out his powers. It sets 
his wits at work. It disciplines his mind. It 
steadies his brain. It trains him in self-control. 
It enables him to shoulder heavy burdens. It 
feeds him while it seems to consume him, and 
blesses when it appears to oppose. No man 
should fear it. It is the common lot ordained by 
Providence for our highest good, and like Samson's 
lion, when overcome, it will have honey in its 
frame. 

If true in ordinary work, this is emphatically 
true in respect to the attainment of moral char- 
acter. Those men have the deepest hold on truth 
who have had to fight for it ; to whom doubt and 
unbelief have not been passing dreams, but hor- 
rible realities; and who have discovered, after 
many a storm and gale, the quiet harbor of faith, 
where now they float in peace. So temptation 
has a divine work to do in the strengthening of 
moral fiber. We are, indeed, taught to pray, 
" Lead us not into temptation." No man should 
needlessly covet it. It is not wise to stir up the 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



85 



lions that will be glad of a chance to devour us. 
Nevertheless, the Bible also says, " Blessed is the 
man that endureth temptation : for when he is 
tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the 
Lord hath promised to them that love Him." 
Was not Jesus Himself ordained to pass through 
temptation ? Was it not necessary for the per- 
fecting of His power to save ? Even so does 
the resisting of it make us all strong. 

Mark you : it is the resisting and conquering 
it which make us strong, not playing with evil or 
the reckless inviting of it. But God has placed 
us in a world where we must fight if we would 
win ; where the broad way leads to death and the 
way of life is strait and narrow ; where we must 
play the part of soldiers if we would not play the 
part of slaves. Yet He has made this very fact 
to inure to the benefit of those who strive for the 
good and the true. The very necessity of watch- 
fulness forces them to learn how to stay awake. 
The struggle against evil makes them hate it 
more, and more completely triumph over it. 
They come out of the discipline of life with a 
special strength which is infinitely greater than 
that with which they began the fray ; and their 
souls have grown by the painful struggle into a 
vigorous faith and determination and .special 



86 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



knowledge, which may be called, in comparison 
with others, truly gigantic. 

So too, I might show that the conflicts through 
which the Church and the truth of God have 
passed have not been without beneficial conse- 
quences. Jesus expected the history of his 
Church to be one long record of conflict. He 
foretold persecutions, subtle assaults of evil from 
without and within ; slow growth in the face of 
hostile surroundings ; and how clear and accurate 
His forecast was has been demonstrated by the 
facts of nineteen centuries. If ever we are dis- 
posed to wonder why the progress of Christianity 
has not been more rapid, let us not fail to remem- 
ber that He who founded Christianity expected 
just' such a future for it as it has actually had. 
Yet this long conflict has not been wholh' evil, as 
Israel's experience may serve to show. The young 
gospel found itself at the first confronted by the 
mighty empire of Pagan Rome. For nearly three 
centuries they grappled in mortal conflict. One 
or the other of them had to die. It was a tre- 
mendous enterprise to undermine the constitution 
of the ancient Avorld ; to disobey the idolatrous 
mandates of the society about them ; to be true 
to Christ in an empire whose supreme law was to 
worship the emperor; to endure the hatred of 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



87 



men, the constant peril of life, and as the conflict 
thickened to die in great numbers for the sake of 
their Christian faith. But who does not know that 
the very blood of the martyrs became the seed of 
the Church ; that persecution only made the faith 
of Jesus mightier ; that it strengthened the power 
of the infant Church until at last the persecuted 
empire laid down its sword and acknowledged 
that the Galilean had conquered ? It would verily 
seem, if we may judge of Christian history, that 
the times of persecution have been often the times 
of richest spiritual blessing and of greatest pro- 
portionate benefit to the Church of the Crucified. 

So also may we find an illustration in the con- 
flict with intellectual unbehef which likewise has 
marked the history of the Christian Church. 
This conflict began with Paul's speech at Athens, 
and it still continues. Faith has also had to fight 
its way. Old foes take new faces, or are joined 
by new recruits. If anyone be disposed to hesitate 
in view of the intellectual unbelief of the modern 
world, let him reflect that it is as old as Chris- 
tianity. It, too, has brought forth good. It has 
forced Christians to show why they believe ; to 
understand what they believe ; to hold their truth 
with intelligence ; to think it over and over again, 
to correct mistakes. Scientific and philosophical 



88 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



lions have never ceased to attack the Samson of 
whom we speak, but I have not the shadow of a 
doubt that, though the champion of faith may be 
clawed and wounded by his adversaries, there will 
be found at last honey in the lion, and that — which 
is what we all want — truth will be helped forward 
by the struggle. I do not think that it is possible 
to read the story of the progress of Christian 
thought without seeing that the eater has brought 
forth meat, and that from the strong has come 
forth sweetness. 

Once more I might point you to that form of 
the riddle of life which is found in the universal 
mission of suffering and sorrow among men. By 
common admission this is the problem of prob- 
lems, the riddle that in pain and agony thousands 
are wrestling with this very hour, the dark enigma 
of human life. No soul is free from a share in the 
universal heritage of pain. There is scarcely a 
single life which has not at some time sounded the 
depths of darkness, over whom the great waters 
of anguish have not rolled. The whole creation 
groaneth and travaileth in pain together. There 
are times when human life seems unutterably sad, 
so brief and yet so full of suffering; so pleasant 
and yet so crowded with broken hopes and shat- 
tered longings. Below the noise of trade, the 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



89 



laughter of the children, and the mingled cries of 
the market-place and the forum, we may hear the 
solemn undertone that rises in all ages and places 
from the sorrows of humanity ; and who can help 
asking, "O Lord, how long?" Humanity is 
always more or less a " man of sorrows," and the 
longer we live the more are we apt to feel that in 
and by itself existence is profoundly sad. What 
the ultimate and complete solution of this enigma 
of suffering will be we do not pretend to say; yet 
this at least is clear, that those who have faith in 
God have found suffering and sorrow doing more 
than anything else to make them spiritually strong. 
Their testimony is that they never grasped the 
reality of life until they did so amid tears ; that 
they never understood their God or their Saviour 
till they had learned to mourn ; that they never 
fully cast down self from its unlawful throne till 
they had yielded submission in suffering to God ; 
that they never felt sin so hateful, the world so 
empty, God so real and heaven so near, as when 
affliction had come upon them. Every one of us, 
doubtless, knows something of this experience. 
We must, if we be at all children of God. Men 
have found in sorrow a priceless gain to match. 
They have discovered in the monster that would 
overwhelm them a faithful friend who has taught 



90 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



them most needful lessons. They have attained 
through the patient bearing of pain, through the 
humble endurance of trouble, a refinement of char- 
acter, a sweetness of disposition, a gentle, sympa- 
thetic tenderness, a quiet but an implicit trust, 
which has made them seem as beautiful to us as 
they must be dear to God. As the Christ Himself 
wrested from His sorrows power to save us, came 
from Gethsemane and Calvary with the sweetest 
of all sympathy, the tenderest of all love, the 
strong Son of God, He has forever cast at least 
this much Hght on the dark enigma, and taught us 
to believe that the eater will bring forth meat, 
and out of the strong there will come sweetness. 

Thus in Samson's riddle seems to me to be 
expressed in a quaint form the riddle of human 
life ; and in the light of what I remarked, to be 
the specific truth which Samson was raised up 
to teach, may we leave the answer that we are 
to give to the great riddle, as in one or another 
form it will be presented to and pressed upon 
us each. You will find, as no doubt you have 
already found, that nothing you undertake can 
be accomplished without difficulty, and that the 
higher the aim you select, the greater, the more 
subtle, will the obstacles be. You will find that 
temptation to do wrong will dog your steps, will 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



91 



appear in a hundred forms, will sometimes fairly 
overwhelm you by its plausible reasonings and 
its golden offers. If you follow Christ you will 
find that opposition will meet you and often in 
ways harder to resist than if it were open perse- 
cution, and that unbelief will never cease to rail 
against your faith. Then you need not expect 
to be exempt from sorrow. Now perhaps life 
is sunshine, but the clouds and storms will come 
and you will join the long procession of your 
suffering fellow-mortals who fear the Christ. 

Thus the riddle of life will be forced upon you 
and often will it seem insoluble ; and you will be 
ready to exclaim, " Why has God doomed me 
to such a lot?" But who is the strong man? 
Samson was raised up to teach this single truth : 
strength comes through obedience to God. Let 
a man devote his mind and heart to God ; let his 
supreme desire be in all circumstances to obey 
God, and he will find this answer to the riddle 
of life, that the very thing which threatens to 
consume him in reality makes him strong ; that 
no bitter cup is filled for him to drink which is 
not sweetened as he drinks it. " Out of the eater 
came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth 
sweetness." He will find that hfe has an infinitely 
grander end than mere material prosperity or 



92 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



personal pleasure ; that life is meant to be the 
learning of truth, the knowing of God, the attain- 
ment through these of perfect character. For us 
men there is no more necessary means of reach- 
ing the end than the overcoming of obstacles. 
It is to him that overcometh that Jesus said, " He 
shall sit with Me on My throne." 

Make God your Master. Resolve to obey 
Him at all hazards. Put Him in the supreme 
place in your faith and conduct, and then go 
forward fearless in the path of duty, even though 
your adversary as a roaring lion goeth before 
you. Meet difficulty, temptation, and trial, you 
must. If you do not serve God, you must meet 
them just the same. But if you serve Him you 
may meet them and triumph over them, may 
even wrest from them a blessing ; and find in the 
struggle with them unlooked for good. You will 
thus solve the riddle of life, and while others are 
hopelessly entangled you will know the answer. 
You will be strong with the strength which God 
supplies. If God is for you, who can be against 
you ? After the battle of Hfe is over the God 
you have served will place the crown upon your 
head, and you will be more than conqueror 
through Him who loved you. 

O, brothers, many of you, I doubt not, are 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE 



93 



sorely tried and heavily burdened, many of you 
find yourselves confronted with great obstacles, 
and realize that if life is to be noble it must be a 
hard fought battle. I pray you, take God with 
you into the fight. Fight in His name and 
for Him. Give Him your supreme allegiance. 
Then you need not fear but that when life is 
over you will see in the better world that its 
discipline was the means of your deliverance, that 
faith did solve, in fact, the strange enigma, and 
that even what you thought hard and unkind was 
that from which you drew your richest benediction. 



V 



PETER'S SHADOW, OR UNCON- 
SCIOUS INFLUENCE 



V 



PETER'S SHADOW, OR UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE 

" And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and won- 
ders wrought among the people. . . . Insomuch that they brought 
forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, 
that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow 
some of them," — Acts v. 12, 15. 

This scene will not appear incredible if we ob- 
serve how every epoch in the history of revela- 
tion was marked at its beginning by a prodigious 
display of miraculous powers. Thus, for example, 
the exodus of Israel from Egypt, the journey 
through the wilderness, and the conquest of 
Canaan record many such scenes. The ten plagues 
were God's solemn testimony to both His people 
and His foes of His mighty power ; and as we 
follow the march of the sons of Jacob and see 
the Red Sea divided, manna given from heaven 
every morning, waters flowing out of the flinty 
rock, the streams of Jordan standing still, and 
the walls of Jericho falling down, we realize 
that not Moses or Joshua, but Jehovah Himself 
was the leader of Israel. So, too, when the 

7 97 



98 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



kingdom of Ephraim had revolted from its God, 
and when EHjah and Elisha labored for its refor- 
mation, another era of miracles was granted. 
The three years' drought, the fire descending 
on the sacrifice on Carmel, as well as the return- 
ing showers, were supernatural answers to Elijah's 
prayer, and the life of his successor in the pro- 
phetic office was one long series of miraculous 
deeds. 

The same features marked, to a greater or less 
extent, the ministry of other prophets ; but when 
we come to the greatest prophet of all, and to the 
beginning of the new Christian era, then with re- 
doubled energy does the omnipotence of the God 
in Christ manifest itself Men have doubted and 
sought to explain away the miracles of Jesus, 
but if it be once realized that in Him God is in- 
carnate, the lesser displays of power will appear 
not strange but natural. If with the exodus the 
fierce wrath of Jehovah vented itself in ten plagues ; 
much more, with the incarnation, might the love 
of the Father utter itself in deeds of supernatural 
grace. So, beyond all reasonable doubt, Christ's 
life was glorified by a multitude of miracles. 
Those recorded of Him in our Gospels are only 
samples. He trod as God upon earth, though in 
the lowly likeness of man. Before His coming 



PETER'S SHADOW 



99 



sickness and death fled away, as thus in confes- 
sion that He was to be their final conqueror. 

But the personal ministry of Christ on earth 
was short. It was then followed by that of the 
Spirit, which is indeed still the ministry of Jesus, 
but carried on in a different way. But with what 
reason was its beginning also marked by a pro- 
fusion of miracles ? As the last and greatest 
epoch in revelation, we should expect this. The 
opposite would have been out of analogy with 
all God's previous methods. There was still 
need to authenticate these converted fishermen 
as the apostles of God ; there was even greater 
need to encourage their own hearts by the tokens 
of Christ's power and presence ; there was need 
also to illustrate in the most striking way the 
doctrines of the new gospel. It is altogether 
credible, — it is altogether what we should expect 
to find, — that " many wonders and signs were 
done by the apostles " ; and I think we can 
imagine nothing more likely to impress the 
apostle himself and all who saw it with the 
peace, the fullness, the joyfulness, and the divine 
source of the gospel of Jesus than this in which, 
as he walked the streets of Jerusalem, the 
very shadow of Peter falling on the sick about 
him healed them all. Peter himself must have 



LoFC. 



lOO 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



felt that he was the instrument of a power mighty 
enough to change and save the world. 

But while we may thus accept without a doubt 
the Hteral truth of this narrative, it suggests an- 
other truth not miraculous at all and one which 
may be profitably applied to us all. It is an ex- 
ample of a man doing good unconsciously ; of in- 
fluence for good emanating from a man without 
his directly wilHng it, simply because he himself 
is "full of the Holy Ghost and of faith." The 
shadow of Peter is an illustration of unconscious 
influence and of the secret by which such influence 
may be exerted in the right direction ; and I am 
sure that in a world like this, in which we are 
so dependent upon each other, no topic ought 
more strongly to commend itself to our earnest 
thought. Let me use this incident to illustrate 
this theme. 

I. First, let me remark upon the fact itself 
of unconscious influence, and how truly each 
of us ought to feel that what we are and 
what we do make for good or ill an impres- 
sion on our fellow-men. I imagine that we 
shall best realize the influence which we uncon- 
sciously exert upon others if we consider the 
influence which others unconsciously exert upon 
us. Every man must feel that it is easier for him 



PETER'S SHADOW 



lOI 



to assimilate impressions from the world about 
him than to originate for himself, — that he re- 
ceives far more than he creates; and that by 
far the greater part of what he receives glides 
in subtly and silently from sources which have 
no idea of how much they are impressing him. 

The human mind is very receptive as a rule. 
It is in many respects the creation of circum- 
stances, though we would not admit that it is 
altogether so. It grows in many ways like the 
plants and flowers of the garden, which draw 
from the soil beneath, from the air around them, 
and from the rain which falls upon their leaves 
the nutriment they need. So does every man, 
I presume, feel that he draws into him from the 
society about him, from the various changes of 
Providence, which are to him like the changes 
of the seasons, and still more from the moral 
and intellectual atmosphere about him, do what 
he may. He must breathe, draw from all of them, 
I say, influences which he makes in turn his own 
possession and assimilates into his own mind, 
until they become part of himself, so that he 
could not say any longer if they were originally 
his own, or where he obtained them. Most 
minds that are at all quick are like sensitive 
plates on which the world's light plays with its 



I02 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



invisible forces, and sketches with its invisible 
fingers pictures that seldom fade away. Most 
minds are sponge-like, absorbing the element 
in which they are placed by Providence. I know 
there is more in the mind than this power to 
receive and absorb. There is the power to make 
these influences one's own, as I have said ; and 
sometimes the power to apparently originate, — 
absolutely to begin, — an idea. But we must 
confess that this latter is seldom done, and that 
it is more often true that, like these people of 
Jerusalem, we live under the shadow of other 
men's lives. 

Take as our first illustration of this the way in 
which as children we used to receive impressions. 
I suppose no man can look back to his childhood 
without remembering how some of the strongest 
motives which he ever felt were produced by 
events and people and circumstances, the influence 
of which no one else understood. Some passing 
word, dropped from the lips of one who forgot it 
as soon as it was spoken, has lingered in our 
minds like a mustard-seed and in time became a 
great tree. Some book we read has given our 
tastes a bias for life either for good or evil. Some 
slight deed of kindness which we received has 
stored up an inexhaustible fund of gratitude in 



PETER'S SHADOW 



103 



our hearts and made us, in turn, desire to fill our 
own lives with its same spirit. Some slight word 
of encouragement in trying circumstances has 
nerved us afterwards for noble deeds. Go back 
into the morning of your lives, and note how much 
more influence examples had on you than teaching ; 
how much more you received from persons than 
from books ; how far it is true that the character 
which you have since developed was molded by 
trifles, by forgotten passages in the lives of others, 
by some shadow that came over you from an- 
other's character. I believe it was Benjamin West 
who said, " A kiss from my mother made me a 
painter." If so, the great artist's experience was 
not peculiar. Did the daughter of Pharaoh think 
when she took the child Moses into the palace, 
that the education he would receive was to pre- 
pare him to set his people free and give laws to all 
mankind ? Did the young lad David know when 
he defended his father's flock from the lion and 
the bear, how God was making him strong in soul 
and arm so as to deliver and defend his people 
Israel ? Little, indeed, did they know that they 
were being trained, and little do we realize how 
our sensitive minds in childhood and youth ab- 
sorbed principles that have made or marred our 
character for time and eternity. 



I04 THE SINLESS CHRIST 

Then, too, mark how in adult years, at least in 
the opening years of manhood and womanhood, 
we are influenced unconsciously by others. Take, 
for example, the influence of men of history, — of 
the characters about whom we have read. The past 
pours itself like a mighty deluge upon each one 
of us, and all the more if we have learned to gaze 
upon its broad tumultuous waters. It is true that 
we consciously receive fewer influences from 
books than from experience ; but this statement 
must be modified so as to admit that we receive 
vast influence through books, if not from them. 
They are the means by which we are made ac- 
quainted with past generations. They are the 
glasses through which we look at distant ages. 
They bring these near, put us in contact with 
them, and open the gates that the torrents may 
rush in. I need not add that this is unconscious 
influence. These men have long passed away; 
their lives have long since been finished. We can 
judge them now in all their parts, see where they 
failed and where they succeeded; perhaps we can 
assign the reason for their success or failure. 
They know not how their influence has lived after 
them, and the shadow of their names and deeds 
fallen on posterity. 

It would be easy to collect illustrations of such 



PETER'S SHADOW 



105 



influence. I have read that when Guido studied 
the works of Michael Angelo he began " to feel 
within him the risings of genius," — to feel the fire 
of his own inspiration kindled from the brilliant 
light of the great master, — so that he exclaimed, 
" I too am a painter." I have read how Ignatius 
Loyola, when suffering from a severe wound re- 
ceived in battle, began to read The Lives of the 
Saints as a diversion, and how his own ready soul 
caught the contagion from the martyrs of the 
past, until he resolved to surpass their devotion to 
what he believed to be the holiest of all causes ; 
and from that resolve the Jesuit order sprang. 
Bad as we think its influence has been, it was at 
least born from the influence exerted on its foun- 
der's mind by his communion with the devotion 
and sacrifice of those who had long passed away. 

So examples might be multiplied. The early 
missionaries who went on heroic errands for God 
and humanity have done their work not merely by 
laying the foundations of God's temple in the wil- 
derness, but also by stimulating others to follow 
them as builders of it. What have the great 
statesmen of any nation not done to infuse into 
the minds of posterity the principles which they 
obeyed ? The Bible itself also contains many an 
illustration in the same line. It is easy to see how 



io6 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



the characters of Moses and Joshua stirred the 
Jewish heart to the end ; how Solomon influenced 
later thought ; how even Christianity was nursed 
on the influence of her Jewish ancestry, so that 
not a few faults as well as much that was true and 
good came to her from the influence of Hebrew 
saints and of Hebrew history. There is no in- 
telligent man who does not feel the force of past 
examples. The ages gone also pour some of their 
unconscious influence into the life of each one. 
We have our heroes and our ideals, our favorite 
scenes and pictures, our models taken from what 
we have heard or read in the eloquent pages of 
the past, and more perhaps than we are aware do 
these stamp themselves in living impressions on 
our receptive minds. 

Nor is it only the shadow of dead men's lives 
under which we move. Is it not equally true 
that people about us influence us more than 
they know? Does not everyone who has had 
any experience of life feel some anxiety at be- 
holding a younger warrior, in whom he is inter- 
ested, go out to the long battle ? And why ? He 
may have now the best principles. He may have 
professed the most exalted ideas. He may scorn 
whatever is base and low. But alas, he will be 
exposed to an influence as subtle as miasma, 



PETER'S SHADOW 



107 



which may bring on fatal moral disease ! He will 
see, perhaps, how his employers are not in fact 
the honorable men they are esteemed to be, and 
yet how they are successful and their fair names 
unstained. He will see how strict moral prin- 
ciples are held not to apply to business trans- 
actions. He may discover that success is the 
only god of the street and money its only reward. 
And slowly the influence of the world, which is all 
unconscious of his presence, penetrates and spoils 
him. The world did not mean to ruin his charac- 
ter, to make him deny his religion, or to do any- 
thing, good or bad, for him. But he could not 
resist its unconscious influence, he could not stand 
against its tide ; and once swimming with the 
tide, once having his early principles undermined, 
he may go down all the faster until he is cast 
out by the now virtuous indignation of the world 
that has misled him. Who can stop the spread 
of these waves which widen outward ? Who does 
not feel himself moved by them ? How many 
do they not wholly carry away? 

Such is our life. Such are the influences which 
others bring to bear upon us individually. The 
same is true of communities and of nations, as 
might easily be shown. The character of a peo- 
ple is slowly formed by the accretion of in- 



io8 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



fluence, — from antiquity, from other nations, even 
from soil and climate, — and these are fused into 
the national character by some force peculiar 
to itself Revolutions also do not originate sud- 
denly. They are the result of many years' in- 
fluence, where the forces have been slowly at 
work which at length have culminated in a 
crash. So the world moves, rises and falls, 
perpetuates the past, transmits to one part the 
lives and thoughts of another part, no one living 
unto himself, but all working together for weal 
or woe. As societies and as individuals we can 
hardly overstate the effect on us of unconscious 
influence. We live in the shadow of other men's 
lives. 

Now in all this we see the reverse of the pic- 
ture, the converse of my proposition. But the 
proposition itself needs no further proof What 
we have judged to be true of others is true also 
of ourselves, — as we receive we also give ; and 
with what effect ? May we reverse the picture 
and behold the influence which we unconsciously 
must exert in our turn ? You cannot say that 
you are too humble and obscure to exert such 
influence. There is no man, unless he has sunk 
into the very gutter, that has not some one who 
looks up to him. There is no one without his 



PETER'S SHADOW 



circle of friends, who has not some on whom he 
makes an impression, even if he be the humblest 
and the most obscure. 

It is almost too trite a remark to make that 
nature teaches us the power of little things. The 
atoms make the world. The beat of the waves 
wears away in time the hardest rock. So also 
even the humblest toiler, the workman at his 
forge or loom, does his part in the great organism 
of society. The individual soldiers make the 
regiment. I know that by themselves they could 
do nothing. They need the guidance and genius 
of their commanders. But once organized, as 
we all are in this world, no one dare doubt that 
he makes some mark on some other immortal 
soul. He throws some shadow on his fellow- 
creature's path. 

Truly this is an appalling state of things. It 
discloses an overwhelming responsibilty which 
we would not willingly assume. It is a fact from 
which men shrink back and cry with Cain, " Am 
I my brother's keeper?" It seems to lay on 
us the burden of we know not what, — an indefi- 
nite load of accountabihty. But it is a fact. It 
needs no apostle to cast a healing shadow on 
suffering humanity, and no demon to cast a 
shadow of ill. We are doing it ourselves, some 



no 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



of us throwing out such baleful influence on the 
country that though we utter not a word we are 
blasting and cursing many souls, and others 
casting such gentle, pure, and holy influence, 
that men are glad to put themselves in our way, 
as they did in Peter's. All the finer is such a 
life if its heahng shadow falls unconsciously and 
without an effort, out of the fullness of what we 
are, on this troubled, wearied, sin-sick world. 

2. We are then, on the other hand, led by this 
scene in Peter's life to what is the one sure secret 
whereby this unconscious influence may be made 
a blessing to others. Since we are speaking of 
what is called unconscious influence, or influence 
that is incident, indirect, and exerted without the 
knowledge of the one from whom it flows, it is 
evident that this usually proceeds from that 
somewhat indistinct but most certain thing in 
every man which we call his character. This 
is implied in the illustrations we have already 
used. Our influence usually does not flow so 
much from our professions as from what we 
actually believe and act upon. If we are con- 
sistent, and our professions are sincere, then all 
the greater is their power; but if w^e are incon- 
sistent, and show by our lives that we do not 
believe what we profess nor act upon it, then 



PETER'S SHADOW 



III 



the profession is worse than nothing, and the 
influence proceeds from the character, even 
though we may seek to hide it. For it does 
not take long for the world to discover hypoc- 
risy. F'ew men can keep up a perfect disguise. 
The other objects which they are pursuing will 
break through the deception and reveal it. Thus 
real Hfe, this thing called character, will have its 
say and do its work, though the outward reputa- 
tion be old and strong. No man need flatter 
himself that he is exerting a good influence by 
any insincere profession. Time and circumstances 
will tear off the mask and leave the true features 
exposed. There is nothing hid that shall not 
be known and come abroad. You may exclaim 
that it is unreasonable in the world not to be- 
Heve your word, but if you know that word to 
be false, you may be sure that somewhere you 
have let your secret out. At any rate, uncon- 
scious influence flows from what we are, from 
the spirit we actually carry with us day by day, 
from the aims we really have most in mind, from 
the thoughts we chiefly love, and which, to a 
degree that perhaps would surprise us, mold our 
outward actions in spite of the most watchful 
care. 

The question, so far as moral influence is con- 



112 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



cerned, is this, How should we fortify our char- 
acters ; what shall they be, so that, when we are 
off our guard and engaged in the duties of daily 
hfe, they may of themselves exert an influence for 
good upon those about us ? There is just one — 
one only, secret of such unconscious influence. It 
is not culture ; it is not refinement ; it is not mo- 
rality. It is something which Christ alone can 
give, something with which he had filled to over- 
flowing this apostle's soul. It is the Holy Spirit. 
Look, for example, at Peter, But a few days be- 
fore that scene the Spirit of Pentecost had de- 
scended on him and his brethren. Before that 
his shadow produced no such effect as it does 
now ; but I doubt not that now his very face told 
that he was a changed man. It was not Peter's 
eloquence which gave him his influence. It was 
not his personal traits of mind with which he 
blessed the multitude, though these traits made 
him the foremost man in the early Church. But 
it was that he was filled with the Spirit whom 
Jesus had promised and now had sent ; a Spirit 
who had flooded Peter's mind as of old God's 
glory had filled with light the holy of holies in 
the temple ; a Spirit that was divine and so able 
to bless, heal, and comfort, through Peter, the 
multitude about him. Now, if the Holy Spirit 



PETER'S SHADOW 



113 



dwell at all in a man, it is in his character, in his 
heart that He dwells. There He makes His 
abode ; and just in proportion as every heart is 
filled with this divine Presence, may we be sure 
that the influence which we unconsciously exert 
will always be for good, not for evil. 

Yet I would not have you look at this truth in 
such a way as to imagine that this gift of the 
Spirit is merely a miraculous, outward endow- 
ment. There is another way of putting the teach- 
ing of our text, and that is, that in order to insure 
an unconscious influence for good in the world, 
every man must give great heed to his inner, 
hidden heart life. There are some who actually 
never seem to think of this. They live on the 
surface. They are absorbed in things outside of 
them, and only think at all so far as may be in the 
line of their business. In that they think hard 
enough, but they do not like to probe down into 
their own character. They enjoy too much the 
pleasures of the senses. They are too much de- 
lighted with the pursuit of knowledge, it may be. 
To isolate their own minds, and fix on them the 
attention which they give to others, would, they 
feel, soon involve such self-reproach as they do 
not care to face. So they neglect their own char- 
acters altogether. Their inner Hfe gives them no 

8 



114 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



concern ; they do not stop to consider how much 
evil their very neglect of character may itself 
cause. Such men, at any rate, cannot be religious, 
for this inner life of the soul is the secret of all 
spiritual and moral power, and he who makes his 
shadow a healing one must look within. 

Such is the lesson which the Bible teaches in 
the lives of its saints. See, for example, Elijah. 
He came and went Hke a phantom before Ahab 
and Israel, but a most real prophet of the Al- 
mighty was he. We think of him daring to up- 
braid for his crimes a guilty king ; daring even to 
call down disaster on his land; above all do we 
imagine him in that dramatic scene on Mount 
Carmel when he set off the power of Jehovah in 
the fire from heaven against the impotence of Baal 
and his priests. But was he the real Elijah ? By 
no means. The real man was shown when he 
bowed in agonizing prayer before God, when he 
communed with God in the wilderness ; when on 
Horeb he heard God speak to him in the still, 
small voice. It was the communion which Elijah 
had with Jehovah which enabled him to dare the 
wrath of the king ; it was this which made him 
the spiritual giant he was, and caused him to 
glow and burn wherever he went with the influ- 
ence -^^^hich alone could save his deluded people. 



PETER'S SHADOW 



Or see David, the poet-king. What was the 
secret of his influence, — what is the great source 
of his influence to this day? Was it that he 
conquered his enemies ? that he erected a throne ? 
that he replaced Saul ? These were not the real 
causes of power even then ; still less are they the 
causes of his influence now. That lies in his 
inner religious life. It is because David entered 
so deeply into the fellowship of God, that out 
of his own heart he sang the strains which find 
an echo in all Christian hearts to-day, that he 
lives in our remembrance as one of God's best 
saints. What have the Psalms not done for 
the world? David is dead, but his inner life 
gives food for millions, healing to the sick and 
comfort to the sad. As some one has finely writ- 
ten, ** The Psalter is the sacred book of the 
world. Cromwell led his men to victory with 
the 68th Psalm ; Luther strengthened his heart 
with the vigor of the Psalms. Wallace had his 
psalter hung before him at his execution and 
died with his eyes fixed upon it. Polycarp, Hil- 
debrand, Huss, Melanchthon,gave their last breath 
to the words of a Psalm. One Psalm alone has 
engraved itself on the lives of men. The peni- 
tence of the contrite soul has loved to breathe 
out its miserere. Thomas Arnold had the 51st 



ii6 THE SINLESS CHRIST 

Psalm read to him when dying, and John Rogers 
recited it as he went to the stake. Jeremy Tay- 
lor transformed it into a prayer. Lady Jane 
Grey repeated its cry for mercy as she ascended 
the scaffold, and Sir Thomas More as he laid 
his head on the block. Augustine had written 
on the wall opposite the bed where he lay sick, 
* The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,' and 
Bernard passed on with this same verse upon 
his lips." 

What an influence to flow from one book, — 
and that book in spirit the work of one man ! 
For though David did not write all the Psalms, 
he struck the key in which other poets con- 
tinued. Thus from his inner life, from his life 
with God, from the devotion of his own soul, 
he threw over the centuries, unconsciously to 
himself, a shadow in which tens of thousands 
have found peace and joy. Because he had the 
spirit of his greater Son, he became hke Christ 
himself, the shadow of a great rock in a weary 
land. 

Now, my hearer, do you not think it worth 
your while to do what you can to cast a healing 
shadow on the world around you ? Surely the 
world needs all the help you can render. It is 
sick and sorrowful, and needs comfort ; sinful, and 



PETER'S SHADOW 



117 



needs the blessing of all the good examples and 
the good deeds you can give it. Then be it 
remembered that what you purposely strive to do 
for the good of others is not all you might do. 
Unknown to you your character will tell upon 
the world, will help or hinder your intentions. 
From you men may draw encouragement, may 
be stimulated to labor more cheerfully, suffer 
more patiently, struggle more bravely, and be- 
lieve more firmly, or may be disheartened and be 
led to falter and give up. 

You may move through the world, if you will, 
like Peter along the streets of Jerusalem, scat- 
tering on every side joy, hope, and peace. What 
a life to live ! How thankful we should be that 
such a Hfe is possible ! But if you are to do 
this, then must you pay the price. You must 
surrender your life altogether to Jesus Christ. 
You must strengthen your faith and love by com- 
munion with Him. You must be willing to sacri- 
fice whatever He demands, whenever He de- 
mands it. You must, Hke Peter, fill your heart 
with the Holy Spirit received from Christ's hand. 
Then you need not vex yourself with the ques- 
tion whether you are doing good or not by your 
influence, for you will not be able to help doing 
good, — it will flow out from your words and 



ii8 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



deeds, and unknown to you, you will cast a 
healing shadow over the hearts and lives of 
others. Men will glorify in you the God whom 
through you they have come to know as a God 
of love. 



VI 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND 
THE LIFE 



VI 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 

" Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life." 
— John xiv. 6. 

The second and third of these predicates 
explain and define the first. Notice that the first 
statement, " I am the way," is a figurative one. 
In it Jesus uses a material object to express a 
spiritual truth. He spoke in answer to the ques- 
tion of Thomas, " Lord, we know not whither 
Thou goest; and how can we know the way?" 
Jesus wanted to teach the disciples that even if 
they did not know much about heaven and the 
future, yet they possessed in their relationship to 
Him the means whereby all that was good and 
heavenly would be attained by them. He said, 
" I am the way, ... no man cometh unto the 
Father, but by Me." Notice that the second 
and third predicates are not figures at all, but 
plain and direct statements. They are meant 
literally. " I am the truth." " I am the life." 
They were evidently added in order to explain or 
define the sense in which He said He was the 

121 



122 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



way ; and the whole sentence is to be accordingly 
understood. " I am the way," said Jesus, " be- 
cause I am the truth and the life." 

Now to be taught the way to God is man's 
supreme need. We instinctively use the figure, 
even though we know that it is but a figure. 
Moral distance is naturally represented by spacial 
distance. The sinner is pictured not only by 
Christ but by himself as in a far country : and 
though God be not far from any of us, man feels 
after Him, like the blind who have lost their way, 
if haply he may find Him. To reach God is the 
confessed goal of human life. To know the way 
to Him is our chief necessity. So testify the 
history of all religions that ever have held sway 
over humanity. So testify the longings and felt 
needs of every thoughtful heart. Sometimes 
God is thought of as to be reached at the end of 
the present life ; sometimes, and more correctly, 
as to be reached at once. But in either case the 
way to Him is what man needs to know. How 
is God to be made manifest to our thought and 
consciousness ? How is the human soul, with its 
sins and fears, to ascertain God's forgiveness and 
to be positively reconciled to Him ? How are we 
to live so as at last to attain the divine presence in 
the world beyond? God is necessary for our 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 123 



happiness. Life is unfinished until it be in har- 
mony with God. Only in God can we be satis- 
fied and saved. And so the cry of all earnest, 
awakened souls the world over is for God. Jew 
and Gentile join in the search. The only ques- 
tion is, What is the way ? To answer this ques- 
tion is to solve the supreme problem of human 
life. 

Jesus Christ claimed to solve the question in a 
unique manner. He did not say, " I can show 
you the way to God." He did not come as a 
wise man or even as a prophet. He said, " I am 
the way." He evidently meant that He was such 
a being that by virtue of what He was, access to 
God had become possible for man, that alone 
through some personal relationship to Himself 
could men find God. It was a unique answer to 
the question, " What is the way ?" Others had 
pointed out ways of reaching God. None had 
claimed to be the way. 

It was also a sublime claim which could be 
made only by one who believed Himself to 
occupy a position, between men and God, of 
solitary grandeur and importance. In making it 
He virtually declared Himself the God-man, the 
living, personal Mediator between humanity and 
Deity. He is that or He is nothing, according to 



124 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



His own statement ; and if He be that, then He 
ought to have the supreme place in our allegiance 
and trust. If then, as I have said, the words 
truth and life were meant to explain the sense in 
which He is the way, we must examine the claims 
expressed by them in order to understand and 
accept the claim expressed by it. Let us ques- 
tion them in turn. 

Jesus Christ then said, " I am the truth." We 
not only have it on the direct authority of 
one that heard Him say it, but it agrees with 
many other of His recorded sayings. It is put 
in a way that is characteristic of Him. He said, 
" I am the light of the world." " I am the bread 
of life." " I am the door." " I am the vine." 
He also used expressions equivalent in meaning 
to this, though put in other forms. To Pilate He 
said, " To this end was I born, and for this 
cause came I into the world, that I should bear 
witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of 
the truth heareth My voice." Even in the Ser- 
mon on the Mount He spoke as one having 
authority, putting His thought supreme above 
that of all other men. It is quite credible that 
He also said, as John reports it, " I am the 
truth." He also made belief in Himself to be 
the condition of entering the kingdom of God, 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 125 

which is the kingdom of the truth. Observe 
carefully His language. He did not say merely 
that He was true ; that what He taught was 
right; that it was worthy of credence. He does 
not present Himself to us as merely a teacher of 
the truth. Paul could have said that — yea, any 
teacher, inspired or uninspired, might reasonably 
make the claim. If this were all, Jesus would 
take His place with the long list of wise men to 
whom the world has Hstened. He might be a 
great instructor of the race, greater than Socrates 
or Solomon ; but He would never deserve to 
occupy the peculiar place which He does occupy 
in the faith of the Church, nor would His religion 
necessarily be the absolute and universal one. 
There is a great difference between saying, " I am 
true " and " I am the truth." 

But, on the other hand. He certainly did not 
mean that He was the only truth or all truth. 
He was speaking of morals and religion, of the 
way to God, and the winning of eternal life. He 
did not say I am truth," but " I am the truth," 
the truth paramount. " I am the truth which 
all men who would find God need to know ; the 
truth which in the matter of man's salvation is 
essential ; the truth before which all other truths 
sink into comparative insignificance„ I do not 



26 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



merely teach it : but I am it." In so saying, 
Jesus declared that His existence was the su- 
preme fact in human history, the knowledge of 
which was more important than any other kind of 
knowledge. Only by taking His personality and 
work into account could men rightly think of 
God and duty and heaven. That He is ; and what 
He is, the Christ of God, the revealer of the 
Father, the Son of God and Son of man, is the 
truth paramount in the whole sphere of human 
knowledge and the whole history of human life. 

It must, I think, be evident that He could have 
spoken thus only if that idea of His divine-human 
personality, which apostles taught and the Church 
has cherished, be true. If He were but a man. 
He could not have thus spoken, provided at least 
that He was sane and honest. Some people have 
stumbled over the fact that Jesus did not expressly 
and prominently teach His own divinity as the 
apostles did. They forget that He came to be a 
man, to thrust His humanity into the foreground, 
that as man He might be man's Saviour. But He 
did claim rights and powers which only God can 
have, so that we are sure the apostles were not 
mistaken ; and when He here claimed to be the 
truth. He asserted for Himself a position so su- 
preme that nothing fully accounts for the claim or 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 127 



justifies it except the doctrine of the Incarnation. 
But if the Word did become flesh, if the Son of 
God did become the Son of man, then does the 
language of the text become perfectly intelligible. 
Before such a fact no other can be mentioned, 
none can be so important, none so full of mean- 
ing. Then could He easily say, " I am the truth." 

But I would like to persuade you of the right- 
fulness of Christ's claim not by dogmatic con- 
siderations so much as by an actual examination 
of what He appears to be. 

Look, for example, at His character and see 
if He be not the truth. The wonderful fact about 
Christ as a moral teacher is that He Himself was 
all that He taught others to be. In this He stands 
absolutely alone in the whole list of teachers. 
Buddha only made an approach to such a claim ; 
but he professed to reach perfection only after a 
long Hfe of self-discipline. Jesus Christ was from 
the beginning the perfect embodiment of His own 
teaching. True, the Epistle to the Hebrews says 
that He was made perfect through sufferings ; 
but by that was evidently meant that He was 
made perfectly able to save by the things which 
He suffered. The New Testament represents 
Jesus as growing in wisdom and knowledge, but 
it never represents His growth as consisting in 



128 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



the removal of sin. On the contrary, it declares 
Him to have been wholly without sin. 

But whatever the Scriptures may say, the fact 
is, that as we study His character and life it ap- 
pears absolutely to agree with His own moral 
teaching. This was the reason why His teaching 
had such powder. It was not altogether new 
teaching. Men had long known most of the 
duties which Jesus announced to them. His great 
command : " Love the Lord thy God . . . and thy 
neighbor as thyself," was taken from Moses. It 
was even well known to the Jews, for a lawyer, 
you remember, once quoted it to Christ. It is 
possible to find anticipations of Christ's moral 
teaching even in heathen writers. Some have im- 
agined that it is necessary to show that all was 
new Avith Christ ; but it is neither necessary nor 
is it true. 

The unique power of Christ's moral teach- 
ing lies in these facts : First, that it does not 
include anything which the surest tests that men 
can apply prove to be erroneous or false, whereas 
heathen moralists, while uttering great truths, 
unite them with folly or wrong. Then, secondly, 
Christ's moral teaching shows the highest sense 
of proportion between duties and the grouping of 
them round the fundamental principle, so that 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 129 

they make the impression of one great thought, 
and grow out of one great principle, the thought 
and principle of love. But, thirdly, Christ's unique 
power as a teacher of morals lies in the fact that 
He embodied in His own life His whole teaching. 
Did He teach the love of God and man ? His 
life expressed just that; for His whole career was 
nothing but the utterance of love to God and to 
man. Did He teach the duty of personal, sincere, 
absolute righteousness ? Did He teach humility 
and meekness and purity? Did He say, "As 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye also 
to them likewise " ? Did He say, " Love your 
enemies, bless them that curse you " ? I need not 
remind you that all this was pictured in His own 
condition and character for the admiration and 
imitation of mankind. He could say, " I am the 
truth." He gives us not a theory of condition nor 
a treatise on morality, but an actual life, in which 
all that is good stands forth in real existence. He 
could say, " Follow Me ; for all the truth concern- 
ing what man should be I am." This was the 
main cause of His moral power. This is its main 
cause now. This excludes Him from comparison 
with all other teachers. He was and is in the 
sphere of moral character all that He taught to 
be the truth. 
9 



I30 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



Then consider, still more particularly, that 
Christ's teaching about salvation and the way in 
which we may secure it rests upon and grows 
out of what He is, so that if you were to take 
Him away from under it, the whole doctrine 
would fall in a minute to the ground. This will 
appear if we look at it from several points of 
view. 

Christ has told the world of God's love for 
the sinful. The supreme truth which Christianity 
proclaims is not that God will punish the impeni- 
tent. Conscience and the Mosaic law had al- 
ready proclaimed that, and Christianity simply 
reaffirms it. Its proper message is that man may 
be saved from sin and from its consequences. It 
speaks to a perishing, lost race, telling them that 
God is like a father waiting for the return of his 
wandering son; nay, that He has sent forth an 
invitation to men to seek again His face and 
home. He is reconcihng the world unto Himself. 
He would have all men to be saved. He desires 
not the death of the sinner, but rather that he 
should turn from his sins and live. Whosoever 
will, let him come and take the water of life 
freely. Above all the truths which Christianity 
proclaims, this soars out as the sun above the 
stars ; it gleams as the diamond among jewels. 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 131 

But how do we know it to be the truth ? Solely 
because Christ the Son of God came forth from 
the Father to express in His life and work that 
love. " God so loved the world, that He gave 
His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life." Christ is this truth. He is the love of 
God personified, incarnate, m.ade manifest. Take 
Him away and the darkness returns again, for the 
love of God becomes once more only a specula- 
tion or a hope. He could have said, " I am the 
love of God. I bear it in My being. I express 
it. I prove it. I represent it, and its reality and 
its power issue from what I am. I am this 
truth." 

Then, again, Christ has not only proclaimed 
God's love, but He has insisted that the object 
of it is to reconcile men with God, and that 
salvation consists in nothing less than such real 
reconciliation. Christ's teaching is based on the 
recognition of sin as a fact, on guilt as requir- 
ing atonement, on human life as in rebellion 
against God. God's love, He said, has provided 
a way by which the sinner may be reconciled to 
God. Jesus did not speak of salvation as merely 
escape from punishment. That is only its nega- 
tive side. It consists in reunion of heart and life 



132 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



with God. Eternal life is to know God. This is 
to be a personal reconciliation, — a reunion of the 
individual, not of the race or nation, — with His 
Father. 

It is a sublime scheme of redemption which 
Christianity proclaims. It takes into account the 
whole nature of God, — His holiness and His 
love. His wisdom and His unchangeableness ; 
and it shows how these may be satisfied and yet 
the sinner saved. It takes into account also the 
whole nature and need of man, — his guilt, requir- 
ing atonement; his sinfulness, requiring renewal 
of heart ; his ignorance, requiring revelation ; his 
fear, requiring promises ; his doubts, requiring ar- 
gument and patient education; and shows how 
all these may be recognized and satisfied, and so 
the sinner be saved. The keynote of the whole 
is reconciliation of man with God, and this truth 
Jesus proclaimed in the plainest way. He called 
sinners to repent. He said that He was going to 
lay down His life as a ransom. He insisted that 
each one must be born again. He sketched the 
outline of the whole scheme when He said, " I in 
them, and they in Me, that they may be made 
perfect in one." This is His teaching. But mark 
that it all depends on His being what, in the cir- 
cumstances, He is required to be. He holds the 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 133 



scheme together as a keystone holds the arch. 
He is this truth concentrated, if I may so speak. 
He shows us God and man united in His own 
person. He is the sacrifice by which human 
guilt may be removed. He is the power by 
which the new nature is formed in us through the 
Holy Ghost. He is the pledge of victory by 
which our fears and doubts are vanquished. He 
is the theme by knowing which our minds are 
enlightened. In short, He is the reconciliation of 
man and God ; and the enjoyment thereof by the 
race of men will be obtained only as they partake 
of Him. 

Thus could He say, I am the truth." He 
could say so without figure. All Bible doctrine 
is simply the interpretation of Christ, the expan- 
sion, so to speak, of His personality and the fruit 
from His life. All Christian duty is summed up 
in the imitation of Christ. He is the alpha and 
omega of God's thought, — the alphabet by which 
we spell out reHgion and through which God 
speaks to us. He is far more than the Founder 
of Christianity, — He is Christianity, and all that 
is Christian is an outgrowth from Him. Take 
Him away, and the whole structure is left with- 
out certainty, without proof, and without power. 
Aye, He is the truth. There He stands in 



134 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



human history, unrivaled and self-accrediting. As 
the mists of ignorance are lifted He appears more 
true than ever. As the mind tries the experiment 
of other saviors, it turns with new conviction 
back to Him. As it tests His word, its convic- 
tions are again confirmed. The storms of con- 
troversy may sweep away other beliefs, but they 
die at His feet. He has stood the test of cen- 
turies, and He is more convincingly true than 
ever. He is the truth. He guarantees it, He 
explains it, He embodies it, He makes it, — the 
truth without which God would be hidden, im- 
mortality veiled, and salvation a question. Jesus 
Christ as an historical fact is the truth which 
beyond all comparison with any other deserves 
to be called fundamental and supreme. 

But now, observe. He went further. Let us 
briefly examine the other statement which He 
joins to this : " I am the life." 

It is to be understood, of course, in the same 
way as the former. He did not say, I am the 
living One," as if He meant to affirm His own 
immortaHty. That would have been true, but it 
was clearly not His idea in this place. Nor did 
He say, " I am life." That also would have been 
true ; for John writes of the eternal Word, " In 
Him was life." But Jesus said, " I am the life," 



THE WAY. THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 135 



the life, that is, of renewed souls, the power which 
alone can make humanity truly Hve, the moral 
and spiritual vital force of the kingdom of heaven. 

It is also evident, I think, that as His claim to 
be the truth can be fairly explained only by some 
such idea of His personality as that which the 
apostles taught, so likewise His claim to be the 
life can be fairly explained only by some such idea 
of His spiritual relationship to His people as is 
taught by the same witnesses. Indeed, in this 
very chapter it is recorded that He said, " Because 
I live, ye shall live also." " I am in My Father, 
and ye in Me, and I in you." Such expressions 
imply that the believer is united with Christ by 
some invisible tie, corresponding to the depending 
of branches on a vine, and of such a nature that 
His life supports and works through theirs, and 
His immortality pledges theirs. " I am," He said, 
" the life of God's people. They are to abide in 
Me. I will dwell in them. We two shall have 
one life. I will live in them and from them shall 
bring forth the fruits of My power." 

But, as in the former case, I would rather per- 
suade you of the truth of this claim than discuss 
its doctrinal meaning. 

That Christ is the life of His own teaching, 
I have already shown. His person gives power 



136 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



to His moral commands — power to His doctrine 
of salvation. On His being their force depends. 
But is not this marvelously realized in the case of 
all who recognize that truth ? Christ is a power 
which men feel as a quickening touch. Account 
for it as we may, when once He really obtains 
hold of a human mind, He makes it live as it 
never did before. Life and death are opposites, 
and by thinking how dead to divine things men 
are by nature, the meaning of new life becomes 
clear. They do not love God though He is in- 
finitely beautiful and good. They do not serve 
others, save in a narrow way, though there is so 
much need for service. They are indifferent to 
the claims of many duties. They are absorbed in 
selfish work and pleasure. They would be glad 
if there were no God. 

Is not this rightly called death ? It is the de- 
struction of the best and purest sides of the hu- 
man being, and the beginning of corruption and 
moral decay. But is it not the fact that when 
Christ obtains hold of a man, this death ceases 
and its opposite begins ? We could point you 
to cases as significant of His power as when 
He called Lazarus from the grave or the young 
man of Nain from his bier. Explain the process 
as we may, the fact of a new life appears. Men 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE 137 



strive after new ideals. They are controlled by 
new motives. They love new objects. They are 
impelled by new energies. God becomes their 
Father, righteousness their aim, and service their 
desire. Thus Christ shows Himself the life of a 
soul, and by every test of right living which we 
can apply He proves Himself to be the author 
of it. 

Still further. He makes life for us in another 
sense. We often call a thing our life which gives 
us the most joy and peace. We all know that 
life is more than drawing breath. Our life consists 
in the value of the work that we are doing, or in 
the sweetness of the pleasures that we are tasting ; 
and I affirm that in this sense also Christ is the 
life. For in the experience of those over whom 
He does obtain control, He brings the utmost 
satisfaction which man knows on earth. Nothing 
is more disappointing in the end than a selfish, 
worldly life. Nothing is more satisfying than a 
Christian life. Christ gives us work to do which 
is worth doing, and which when it is done does 
not leave mere fatigue behind. He gives us the 
object in life which is worth realizing and which 
does not mock us when we reach it as do most of 
the objects for which men strive. He gives us a 
hope v/hich is never disappointed, which always 



138 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



has new promises in store when the lesser ones 
have been enjoyed ; which shines as a star in the 
darkest night of trouble and breaks like the rising 
sun upon our dying eyes. He is the life of His 
people, the eternal spring from which they draw 
refreshing waters, the perfect satisfaction of their 
immortal souls. 

Then all this rises to a still more sublime idea. 
He is the life of His people which was taken for 
their sake, the life-blood. All this is true because 
He really lives. We do not know how dependent 
we are on Him any more than we reahze how de- 
pendent this world is on the sun. He is doing a 
work for us day by day of which we receive the 
benefits. He is protecting us from evil. He is 
maintaining our cause before God. He is govern- 
ing the world for the sake of His kingdom and its 
subjects. He is giving us temporal blessing and 
spiritual help. Thus He is making His truth 
effective and applying it to our only too reluctant 
minds. It is not the truth alone which saves, but 
the Christ who comes to us through the truth ; 
for He, not it, is the life of them who know and 
test His power. 

Does it seem to you doubtful that the world is 
reaching the better life through the influence and 
power of Christ in it ? Are there not thousands 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH. AND THE LIFE 139 



upon thousands of men and women who seem to 
you to have found in Him the best character and 
the best aspirations that it is possible to have on 
earth ? Do you not see the fruits of righteous- 
ness and the flowers of holy grace being borne 
upon this vine ? Is it not a wonder to you that 
those who deny themselves the most for Him find 
the most pleasure in His service, and that those 
who follow Him the most closely are the best and 
happiest of men ? Surely these are sufficient 
signs of the still better life which is beginning and 
which will be made perfect in God's house above. 
If so, with what perfect truth could Jesus say, 
" I am the life." 

Now mark the conclusion and climax. If He 
be thus the truth and the life, then He is, indeed, 
the way. Taking this truth, sharing this life, a 
man is fast journeying toward God. Christ can 
now truly say, " I am the way." Elsewhere He 
said, " I am the door : by Me if any man enter in, 
he shall be saved." To receive Him as the truth, 
to accept Him as the life, is to enter through the 
door and to go along the way which leads straight 
to God. 

Are you in this way ? In Christ you are safe. 
If not, will you not enter it ? There is no other 
way. You need atonement, and His blood alone 



I40 THE SINLESS CHRIST 

cleanses from all sin. You need divine love, and 
He is that love. You need instruction, and He is 
the truth. You need power, and He is the life. 
Imagine a man lost in a forest, — baffled, afraid, in 
danger, lost, — finding a man, a woodsman. Could 
the latter not say, " I am the way " ? Following 
his guidance, depending on his knowledge, trust- 
ing his word, the lost man finds his deliverance. 
So, I may say, amid the confusion of this world, 
ignorant and lost are we, and unto us Christ 
comes, saying, " I am the way," and following His 
guidance, depending on His knowledge, trusting 
His word, we shall escape and be delivered. 
What I have said to prove that He is the truth 
and the life, ought to convince all that He is the 
way. I point you to Him. I invite you to Him. 
He that followeth this way shall not walk in dark- 
ness, but shall have the light of life. 



VII 

EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 



VII 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 

" And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, 
to shine in it : for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb 
is the light thereof, — Rev, xxi. 23. 

" And they need no candle, neither light of the sun ; for the 
Lord God giveth them light," — Rev. xxii. 5. 

St. John's description of the new Jerusalem, 
which in vision he beheld coming down from God, 
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, is 
often regarded as a description of heaven. It is 
so, but only because it is much more. It is a de- 
scription of the ideal state of the Church, the 
realization of her life in her best form, the sym- 
boHcal picture of that which she is to be and 
toward which she is continually to strive. This 
ideal state will no doubt be fully attained only 
when that final condition of things arrives to which 
we give preeminently the name of heaven. If we 
reserve that term for the great consummation 
which lies beyond the resurrection and the judg- 
ment, for that new heaven and earth in which will 
dwell righteousness, for that distant age and place 

143 



144 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



of which we know neither the time nor the loca- 
tion, but to which as to an indisputable reaHty we 
are pointed, both by our own hopes of immortahty 
and yet more plainly by the Christian Scriptures ; 
if, I say, we confine the term heaven to this final 
happy state of human existence, we may be con- 
fident that then and there first will the ideal of 
Christian life be attained by the myriads of the 
redeemed. 

But while we thus look forward we should not 
forget that the ultimate result will be the out- 
growth of those spiritual forces which are even now 
acting upon and in us. Heaven will be the prod- 
uct of the better life which by God's grace has 
already begun. It will not be estabhshed by any 
reversal of the laws under which we now are, but 
by their triumph. It will be the fruit of the seed 
planted here. It will be the glorious issue of the 
gospel which we now believe. It is an ideal, hov- 
ering as it were over our present faulty and strug- 
gling lives, an ideal toward which we are to strive, 
the spirit of which we are as much as possible to 
realize, and an ideal which by our faith in God and 
Christ we may be certain will not vanish as we 
approach it, but will be finally and forever estab- 
lished. 

This view of the matter is important. It makes 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 145 



US see that what the Bible says about heaven is 
not in the least disconnected with our present 
duty. It is a practical doctrine when thus viewed. 
It is not a mere dream of minds weary with pres- 
ent toil and care, not a mere refuge for souls dis- 
heartened by the daily battle of life, not a mere 
compensation for present losses, not, as we so often 
wrongly make it, a contrast with that we now 
possess. It is a promise for those who toil, that 
they shall not be unrewarded, an assurance of the 
worth of that which now is in Christian experience 
of the grandeur of that in which it will issue. 

The farmer should not dream of an abundant 
harvest while he idles away his time and lets his 
fields go to waste. His dream of harvest ought to 
drive him to the plow and to incessant care for 
the delicate, springing grain. The citizen must not 
dream of an old age of fame and wealth and 
leisure, if he takes his leisure in youth and does 
not bend his energies to the hard toil which pres- 
ent opportunity offers him. This dream has no 
possibility of being realized unless he now works 
and lays the foundations of the future by industry 
of hand, culture of brain, and refinement of heart. 
So our Christian dreams of heaven are to be kept 
in contact with our earthly life. In very scanty 
measure have they been given us at all in the 
10 



146 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



pages of the Bible, and then manifestly with the 
purpose of impelling us to a right use of our 
present lives and of the agencies which Christ has 
established on earth for the service of God and 
man. 

So you will observe that John's description of 
the holy city consists to a considerable degree 
of negations. " There shall be no more death, 
neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be 
any more pain." " I saw," he says, " no temple 
therein." " There shall be no more curse." " There 
shall be no night there." But these negations of 
evil are reported as the result of the possession 
of positive good which by its unobstructed energy 
has driven the evil away. God has made all 
things new, and therefore the former things are 
passed away. The Lord God Almighty and the 
Lamb are the temple of it, and therefore he saw 
no temple therein. The throne of God and of 
the Lamb shall be in it and His servants shall 
serve Him, and therefore there shall be no more 
curse. The glory of God did lighten it and the 
Lamb is the light thereof, and therefore there 
shall be no night there ; and they need no candle, 
neither light of the sun. 

In other words, the fullness of life, knowledge, 
and enjoyment has destroyed every trace of death, 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 147 



ignorance, and sorrow. The mingled good and 
evil which we now meet exists no more. The 
clouds no more obscure the sun. Disease no 
more attacks the vital powers. The exuberant 
vitality of the redeemed souls has shaken off 
the possibility of evil, and round the life of God 
in man a new world has formed, one irradiated by 
the truth, beatified by the love, purified by the 
Spirit, rejoicing in the presence of God and the 
Lamb. All this triumph of good over evil is the 
splendid fruitage of the seed which was sown in 
tears and nourished through the conflicts of time 
by the Christ and His people. 

Now I venture to call your attention to one 
item of the apostle's description which contains 
a specially valuable suggestion, under its figura- 
tive form, concerning both our present duty and 
future hopes. Amid the glories of ideal pictures, 
John observes the absence of any need of light- 
giving bodies, because all is illuminated by the 
brilliant outshining of God and the Lamb. It 
needs no argument to prove that his language 
is figurative and symbolical. Light is in Scrip- 
ture the commonest emblem of knowledge, par- 
ticularly of moral and spiritual knowledge, and 
God as the source of this is called by this same 
appellation, — Light itself There would seem 



148 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



then to be little room for doubt as to the mean- 
ing of this feature of the inspired and inspiring 
vision. He means to say that the imperfect, par- 
tial, temporary lights by which we now live are 
to be made needless by the supreme manifesta- 
tion of Himself which God through Christ will 
make. Let me try to unfold the ideas which 
seem to be contained in this pictured thought. 

First, there is the implication that the lights 
by which we now live are in a sense imperfect. 
They are small and chiefly dull ; they are meant 
to serve a temporary purpose. As I have said, 
the language is the language of symbol and 
figure. What John meant to say may perhaps 
be most clearly seen if we use as an illustra- 
tion of the text the verse which precedes it. 
" I saw," John there says, " no temple there- 
in." We can understand what that meant to 
a Christian Jew. The temple was the supreme 
symbol of the Jewish faith. It was the place 
where God dwelt among His people. Its rites 
illustrated the way in which God was to be ap- 
proached by man. It was the concrete expres- 
sion of the old dispensation. It was the em- 
bodiment of revelation so far as that had then 
been made. Consequently, for him to see no 
temple in the new Jerusalem was as much as 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 149 



to say that the old means of teaching, the old ex- 
pressions of the truth, have passed away. He 
now says that God and the Lamb are the temple 
of it The type has been fulfilled and so has 
ceased to be needed; the reality which it fore- 
shadowed has been reached. The ideal has so 
far been attained and the temporary structure 
and the temporary rites which prepared for that 
ideal have done their work and passed away. 
In Hke manner does he speak in our text ; only 
now his view is broader. All the lights by which 
men now live are but preparations for a better. 
Man's whole life on earth is to the grander 
future what the Hebrew dispensation was to 
the Christian age. We are still in the region 
of types, though of a greater and less evident 
kind than those of Moses, and while the lights 
we Hve by are as the sun to a candle when com- 
pared with what is past, they are but as candles 
themselves when compared with what is to 
come. 

Thus, reason is one of the lights we now live 
by; and yet it is not hard to show that reason 
is but a candle-power illuminating dimly to us 
the spiritual world. Some men profess to make 
reason the sole guide of belief and life, but it 
does not require much agility in logic to show 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



that on the deepest questions which harass human 
thought reason has Httle or nothing to say. I do 
not mean for one moment to disparage the use 
of reason even in religion, but simply to suggest 
that its power and its authority are Hmited. By 
reason is meant the intelligence with which we 
are endowed, the power of observation and re- 
flection which distinguish man from the brute. 
These are not to be disparaged save when they 
claim for themselves a power which can be shown 
not to belong to them. But certainly reason 
can form conclusions only upon the basis of 
evidence which has been presented to it. It can 
scan and meditate upon the external world and 
draw its conclusions as to the forces which are 
operating there, as to its past history, so far as 
records of this remain, and as to its present 
use. It can examine the mind likewise and 
draw its conclusions concerning the constitution 
of the mind and its relation to external things. 
Reason can study the experience of the past and 
infer therefrom what is probably the wisest course 
for men to follow now. It can reflect and specu- 
late and draw its inference concerning both things 
seen and things unseen. But it can act only on 
the evidence presented it. If there be any sphere 
of which it has had no experience it can tell us 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 151 



nothing. Even when it can tell us something, 
there is much that it cannot understand. 

Moreover, it is a very delicate instrument of 
knowledge, easily thrown out of order. Let one 
trifling element of a problem be unobserved, and 
the conclusions of reason are valueless. Let 
prejudice or personal preference influence it and 
it follows instead of leading the will, so that while 
reason is one of the two or three noblest prerog- 
atives of man, and while every intelligent person 
is responsible for the use he makes of it, he is 
a bold advocate indeed who does not admit that 
it is a partial and imperfect light to live by. 
What certain answer can it make about the char- 
acter of God or His will concerning the future, 
or the means of man's salvation ? This, in fact, 
is substantially the conclusion to which even 
unbeHef has come itself, for after centuries of 
conflict, and after the world has seen gigantic 
webs of speculation spun by the alleged reason 
of mankind, the result has been, professed ag- 
nosticism. This seems to me a considerable 
gain : for it at least confesses that on skeptical 
principles we can know nothing of the deeper 
problems which never cease to press upon the 
human mind. 

So, too, conscience is one of the lights we live 



152 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



by, which agam can be shown to be but a partial 
and imperfect guide. Conscience throws a light 
which reason, apart from it, does not throw ; 
namely, it reveals to us that there is a difference 
between right and wrong, and that every man is 
under supreme obligation to do what is right. It 
is scarcely credible that this should be if there 
were not a moral Lawgiver over the world, and 
hence conscience, like the moon, may be said to 
reflect a light from a source higher than itself 
Yet conscience is but a partial Hght. It too only 
acts on evidence presented to us, tells us that of 
two courses, perhaps, one is right and the other 
wrong, but it does not tell us of itself all that is 
right or all that we ought to do. Moreover it is 
easily blinded, easily bewildered, sometimes like a 
bad compass pointing in the wrong direction. It 
has inspired and justified deeds of horrible cruelty 
and tyranny. It may be so dull of ear as scarcely 
to hear the demand made on it for a decision. It 
may mistake forms for realities. It needs itself to 
be enlightened and quickened in order even to do 
its own proper work. 

Now I add that even revelation is but a partial 
and in one sense an imperfect hght. The Bible 
does not pretend to give us all the truth, not even 
all the truth about God. It does not attempt to 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 153 



solve all the weighty questions which inquiring 
minds are anxious to put to it. Nothing is more 
noteworthy than its reserve and its silence when 
taken in connection with its claims and its teach- 
ings. No one judges it aright who does not keep 
in mind the Hmitations which it puts upon itself. 
Even the apostle Paul wrote, " Now we see in a 
mirror darkly, . . . now I know in part." The 
Bible throws its Hght preeminently upon the one 
great question of man's redemption from sin. 
Here it is like the sun, and the light it throws is 
clear and beautiful. In this it reveals what reason 
could not have discovered, namely, redemption ; 
what conscience would never have made certain, 
namely, forgiveness. But as the sun does not 
illuminate the vast universe beyond our system, 
so the Bible was not meant to cast its light on the 
entire universe of spirits. True, by its aid we 
may obtain glimpses that otherwise would be 
closed to us, suggestions that serve at least to 
warn us against opposing theories. But its light 
falls upon the Christ. It is written, as John said 
his gospel was, that we might believe on the name 
of the only begotten Son of God. Brilliant is its 
light when compared with what we would have 
without it, but it is so manifestly adapted to be 
man's present guide in practical duty that it is in 



154 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



no wise derogatory to its claims to say that it is 
not and does not pretend to be a complete dis- 
closure of truth to the human mind even about 
God. 

Such are examples of the Hghts which shine 
here. I do not say the apostle meant them, but 
they exhibit his idea. 

Now the practical importance of these facts is 
sometimes very great. They bear in two direc- 
tions. On the one hand, they warn us against 
being unduly distressed because these lights, and 
particularly the Bible, do not tell us all we want 
to know. Why will men find fault with the truth 
which has been made known because more is not 
made known? Because they have an exaggerated 
idea of what is possible under present circum- 
stances, because they impute to the Bible, in par- 
ticular, claims which it does not make. When 
you are given a guide book you do not expect it 
to be an encyclopedia. When you are given a 
compass you do not expect it to be a telescope. 
There are many things in relation to God and to 
ourselves about which we have as yet no means 
of information, and he who for that reason quar- 
rels with what we may know, acts on a princi- 
ple according to which he would not think of 
acting in any other sphere of life. For, on the 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 155 



other hand, the Hght we have is real hght, even 
though it do not illuminate all things. The can- 
dle does give some light even though it be not 
sunlight. Reason is trustworthy so far as it goes 
and when acting fairly. Conscience is an au- 
thority the commands of which we are bound to 
obey, though we must try to educate it. Above 
all, the Bible is true. The Christ whom it dis- 
closes is real. The life to which it points is the 
best. The knowledge of God which it gives is 
real knowledge. If a man can obtain fifty per 
cent of a bad debt he would better take it than 
take nothing ; and the truths of reason, conscience, 
and revelation are not to be despised because 
they are not all we want to have. They are the 
lights we have to live by. We may trust so 
far as they shine, and that man does not seem 
to be a wise one who refuses to make the most 
of what he does possess. 

All this, however, belongs to the negative 
aspect of the text. Let us now turn to the posi- 
tive. If it be true that the lights we now live 
by are partial and imperfect, it is also true that 
a brighter light, yea, the brightest of all Hghts, 
is to take their place to the eye of the Christian 
believer. The ideal day is pictured by the apos- 
tle. It is a day without a sun. It is a day with- 



156 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



out ending. It is a day of cloudless brilliance. 
These, as I have said, are emblematical expres- 
sions, pointing to the gloriously complete knowl- 
edge into which the behever is moving. He is 
ever advancing into the light. He sails eastward 
toward an ever-rising sun. With his entrance 
into the kingdom the light first broke upon his 
mind, and with his journey upward it grows in 
brightness, until at last he shall no longer know 
in part, but know as he is known. So John repre- 
sents the fullness of Christian illumination in his 
picture of the holy city which has no need of 
the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for 
the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is 
the light thereof If now we translate this lan- 
guage into common prose, what are we to under- 
stand as the apostle's idea of the brighter light 
by which the lights we now live by are to be 
made unnecessary? 

He evidently means first to represent by it 
the consequence of perfect fellowship of the soul 
of man with God. He pictures a life in which 
the thought is in absolute sympathy with God's 
mind, the heart in absolute accord with God's 
character, the will in absolute harmony with God's 
purposes. It is the life of those who in every 
part of their being have been reconciled to God, 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 157 



not merely forgiven, but restored, and who dwell 
with Him not only in the sense of being citizens 
of His holy city, but in the deeper sense of being 
in personal communion with Him. This picture 
is but the symbolical representation of the per- 
fection of that life which he claimed to be even 
now the portion of Christ's people when he said 
in his first epistle, " Our fellowship is with the 
Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." Now 
we know that, even in secular affairs, when a man 
habituates himself to the study of any particular 
subject he attains an expert knowledge of it so 
that he is able to derive information from it which 
others never could derive, so that he sees at a 
glance the bearing on it of new facts and is able 
in turn to test alleged facts by it. We know 
likewise that through long and intimate associ- 
ation two friends may come to know each other's 
mind, almost to read each other's thoughts, to 
become, so to speak, merged in each other's life, 
till in a true sense they are no longer two, but one. 

Every earnest Christian knows that something 
of the same sort takes place between himself and 
God. As he studies the Scriptures, as he habituates 
himself to prayer, as he learns more and more 
to think of God and to obey Him, as he medi- 
tates upon God's revealed character and will, he 



158 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



obtains a knowledge of Him which is far more 
profound than intellectual knowledge, the knowl- 
edge which is born of sympathy, love, and coopera- 
tion. Thus Paul prayed that he might know 
Christ. Thus Christ said, " This is life eternal, 
that they might know Thee the only true God, 
and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent." Even 
in this world we may find those in whose hearts 
God has been so manifestly revealed that we in- 
stinctively feel that they can lead us nearer to 
Him than any other channel can. It is the per- 
fection of this experimental knowledge which I 
suppose the apostle to picture to us in the life of 
the new Jerusalem. There God will be intimately 
known. No doubt will be possible. No fear 
will ever cloud the consciousness of His presence. 
No rebellion will ever call for the strings of con- 
science to drive us back to duty. Love will be 
unfettered. God's love will be a perpetual sun- 
light answered in our love by a perpetual song 
of praise. The redeemed will know Him ; and 
the helps to knowledge which before they used 
will be made needless by the personal fellowship 
and the increased appreciation of His fatherhood 
which, through the growth of their Christian 
lives, they should attain. 

Now notice still more particularly the apos- 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 159 



tie's language : " The glory of God did lighten 
it." Men have often imagined that the height 
of heavenly bHss will consist in what they have 
called the beatific vision, by which they mean 
that in some way to the purified spirits of the 
just the Infinite One, of whom it is said that 
He dwelleth in the light that no man can approach 
unto, will be to their minds, as it were, visibly 
made manifest. I do not know whether this idea 
is true or false. But this is clear, that when the 
spirits of just men are made perfect, and when 
the soul is in every quality of its being reconciled 
to God, His excellence will appear transcendently 
real and supremely beautiful. This is His glory. 
His glory is a term used to express God's re- 
vealed excellence. We see it now in the wisdom 
made manifest even by nature, in the power shown 
by the creation and support of the universe, in 
the goodness of Providence, in the holiness of 
His moral law, in the righteousness of His deal- 
ing, and, finally, and most supremely, in the love 
of His redemption. To a believing mind this 
glory already appears, and I call you to witness, 
fellow-Christians, if as we advance in our spiritual 
life the glory of God has not become more beau- 
tiful, more real, more sublime, until it has become 
unspeakable. 



i6o 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



But I dare appeal to the experienced knowledge 
of the universal Church, expressed in hymn and 
pra}'er and meditation, that the beaut}- and maj- 
esty, the greatness and the infinite goodness of 
God are truths which fill the mind with light, 
which quiet ever\- dark inquir\-, and shed profound 
peace upon the restless, needy soul of man. This 
light is to burn with greater and greater bright- 
ness until it shines in its full splendor in the soul 
of the redeemed. 

Now to this he adds, " The Lamb is the 
light thereof." This crowns the picture. This 
unifies the description : for it tells us that the 
Redeemer will be forever and forever the medium 
by which God and man shall be made one. Evi- 
dently the Christian will never outgrow Christ. 
If he enters into the most intimate fellowship with 
God so as immediately to know Him, it will still 
be God in Christ that he will know. If the glor}^ 
of God appear to him in supreme splendor it still 
will shine in the face and through the kindred 
glory of Jesus Christ, In Christ there dwelleth 
all the fullness of the Godhead. He is and will 
ever be the revealer of God to man. It will al- 
ways be true that he that hath seen Him hath seen 
the Father. Already the believer begins to see 
Christ's glory. Through Christ his fellowship on 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS i6i 



earth with God is estabHshed. Through Christ 

the Hght breaks in upon his darkened mind. Unto 

all eternity God will become nearer because Christ 

does, God will become clearer and more beautiful 

as revealed in Christ, and the fullness of divine 

life and truth which is in Jesus will be the medium 

whereby the lights we now live by are eclipsed in 

the light of that love which Christ has revealed 

on Calvary, but with all eternity will never cease, 

and which all the ages will never cease to adore. 

I say the Christian will never outgrow Christ, but 

Christ will always be to him the way, the truth, 

and the life, the light not only of this world but 

also of heaven. 

Such, according to my understanding of his 

words, was John's idea of the perfect light. He 

presents it as the ideal of the Christian's life, and 

what a worthy conception it creates of that blessed 

estate which awaits us beyond the grave ! Does 

not this really tell us more about heaven than any 

hteral description could do of the place where 

heaven is or of the way in which we shall there 

be employed ? Do not all the fancies which the 

mind has ever devised seem poor in comparison 

with these broad, yet clear outlines of perfect 

spiritual life ? These give us the moral realities 

of heaven, the principles on which life will there 
11 



l62 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



be passed, the principles which it is important for 
us most to keep in mind if we would be meet for 
the inheritance of the saints in light. " To dwell 
with God, to feel His love, is the full heaven en- 
joyed above," and to every man who has begun to 
feel, that light within the mind is more important 
than light to the eyes. To every man who has 
begun to feel, that true life is a matter of the soul, 
not of the body, and God is the light and Hfe of 
the soul ; to all such will the apostle's description 
appear the very highest idea of heaven which can 
possibly be conceived. 

But, you will now see, as I observed in the 
beginning, that the description of this ideal state 
touches very closely on our life now, so that 
heaven appears as only the attainment of that for 
which we all need to strive. This fellowship with 
God, this perception of His glory, this life with 
Christ, are begun on earth. Hence a new value is 
given to these very lights which are said to be 
eclipsed in a greater. I have said they are par- 
tial. They are not perfect. But now I add that 
by the use we make of them are we to prepare 
for what is better. The light of reason is often 
faltering and dim, but we are to use it now, and 
when joined with faith it will train our power and 
measurably direct our lives. Man will never cease 



EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY LIGHTS 163 



to be a reasoning being, and only in the perfect 
light of Christian experience reason will find its 
noblest opportunity. As an independent light it 
is insufficient, but in conjunction with the Spirit of 
wisdom it will realize its true worth. So con- 
science is to be enhghtened and obeyed, and, 
above all, the Scriptures are to be used and 
trusted, fed upon and followed. 

These are the lights for us to live by now. As 
we use them, the light of God Himself will break 
upon us. We are not to stumble at the fact that 
they do not give us all the knowledge we want, 
but are to use them so that they may lead our 
minds upward and onward. Thus heaven is to 
begin on earth. He who beheld the vision of it 
turns in effect to tell us, Use well, use diligently 
the light that has been given you. Walk in the 
light. Obey Christ. Fill your minds with the 
truth that has been revealed, for these are the 
hghts now made for us to live by, and while the 
future light will far surpass them, it will do so 
only for those who use them now and use them 
well." 

Ah ! we dream of heaven, but we do not reahze 
that it must begin on earth. The traveler at night 
must follow the hght which his guide holds, know- 
ing that though it do not illumine the heavens, it 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



at least shows him the way, and that when night 
is past the sun will rise and the heaven be illu- 
mined. So he who follows the light of truth, 
which the Christ of the Bible holds in His hand, 
will tread the narrow way in safety here, and when 
the day dawns all the light he wants will be his. 
He will see it breaking, see it brightening, until at 
last he shall see it in all its heavenly splendor, 
when he shall need no candle, neither Hght of the 
sun, for the Lord God shall give him light that 
will never pass away. 



VIII 

THE WAITING DEAD 



VIII 



THE WAITING DEAD 

" And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake 
unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in 
your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying. My 
father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die : in my grave which I 
have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury 
me. . . . And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die : and God will 
surely visit you, and bring you out of this land unto the land 
which he sware to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. And Joseph 
took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely 
visit you, and ye shall carry up my bones from hence." — Gen, 1. 
4, 5, 24, 25. 

Genesis closes with the account of the burial 
of two of its most illustrious characters, and we 
are impressed with the fact that men, whose an- 
cestors had been called from a distant land to 
Canaan and who had there lived quiet and com- 
paratively humble lives, were laid to rest amid the 
mourning and with all the honors of the court 
of Egypt. It seems to have been a splendid car- 
avan which bore to the old tomb in Machpelah 
the remains of Jacob. He was escorted not by 
his sons alone, but by the chariots and horsemen 

167 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



of Pharaoh. It was the burial of a prince. Gen- 
tile and Hebrew united to do reverence to the 
father of Joseph. The Egyptian court went into 
mourning. So large was the escort, so royal were 
the signs of grief, that the inhabitants of Canaan 
were moved by the spectacle to exclaim, " This is 
a grievous mourning to the Egyptians." 

When, many years later, Joseph in turn died, he 
was carried, doubtless, to his sepulcher with even 
greater pomp. If Jacob were worthy of such a 
funeral at the hands of Egypt, how much more 
was Joseph — the savior of their land ! Joseph, 
indeed, was buried in Egypt. Jacob had lived 
there but a few years, and it was natural that his 
remains should be returned to the old home. 
But Joseph was identified with Egypt. Accord- 
ing to the rites of Egyptian society was he laid to 
rest, followed by the gratitude and honor of both 
his kinsmen and the people and dynasty whom he 
had served so well. This first book of the Bible 
thus dismisses from its pages the sacred house- 
hold of Abraham by laying upon the tombs of 
Jacob and Joseph the honorable tributes of 
heathen and believer alike. 

You will note, however, that both these men 
died with their thoughts fixed on the return of 
Israel to Canaan, and with hopes built on the 



THE WAITING DEAD 



169 



promises made to Abraham. Joseph expressed 
his faith in words. Though to be himself buried 
in Egypt, he exacted an oath from his brethren, 
to be handed down to the time of the exodus, that 
they should carry his bones with them to the 
promised land. Not in Egypt would he rest, but 
in the land of promise, as though in his future 
tomb he would be able to share in the future 
glories of his people. Jacob expressed the same 
thing by his request for an immediate burial in 
Canaan. Canaan, not Egypt, was the home of 
Israel. There the promises of God were to be 
fulfilled ; and it was the wish of Jacob to rest with 
Abraham and Isaac, in the hope, perhaps, that 
together they might rise to share in the joy of 
coming blessing. 

These men died, therefore, in hope — Canaan 
was their home. Canaan was to be the possession 
of their children. Canaan was to witness the 
kingdom of the future, the glory of Israel, the 
advent of the promised Prince of peace. To them 
death, therefore, was but a season of waiting. 
They do not seem to have considered it as cutting 
them off from the traditional hopes of their race. 
Jacob in Machpelah, Joseph embalmed in Egypt, 
were but waiting for the time to come in the prog- 
ress of events when in some way with their de- 



17 o 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



scendants they should partake in the possession 
of the promised land. 

The burial of the patriarchs, therefore, suggests 
the thought of the waiting dead, of the dead as 
waiting for something to happen whereby their 
own joys would be made complete. Thus the 
men of old times were gathered to their fathers, 
and thus we also lay our believing friends to rest. 
While the Bible sheds but little light upon the 
world beyond the grave, while it refuses to answer 
many questions that trembling voices raise, this 
representation of the dead as waiting is found in 
the New as well as in the Old Testament, and is 
meant to have practical influence upon us who are 
still alive. For what, for whom do they wait? 
And how ? 

The answer is, first, that they are waiting for 
the living. In what sense they thus wait is made 
evident by the expressed hopes of the patriarchs. 
As I have said, these men died thinking less, so 
far as is recorded, of their own happiness imme- 
diately after death and more of the blessing 
which one day was to come to their descendants. 
They do not seem to have thought that they 
would be by death excluded from it. They had 
themselves laid to rest, therefore, in the promised 
land. Therefore it was that Abraham bought 



THE WAITING DEAD 



171 



Machpelah from the sons of Heth. Therefore it 
was that Isaac and Jacob were laid in the same 
rocky sepulcher. Therefore Joseph gave com- 
mandment concerning his bones. They were 
looking to the future, not so much to the world 
beyond death itself as to the world which was to 
come on earth, to the fulfillment on earth of the 
promises to Abraham. They seem to have 
thought of death mainly as a resting with the 
fathers who were already dead until their children 
should have inherited the land and received the 
glory, and through the promised seed, the 
Shiloh, have become a blessing to all people. 

Emphatically, therefore, these dead were wait- 
ing for the living. 

Now it may be well just at this point to recall 
the few items of information concerning the state 
of the dead immediately after death which may 
be gleaned with tolerable certainty from the 
Scriptures. As I have said, the Scriptures reveal 
little more than a few general truths. What we 
may learn from them is rather in the way of cor- 
recting error than of disclosing possible informa- 
tion. To the old patriarchs the grave was even 
darker than it is to us. Little by little, however, 
light shone into it with the progress of revela- 
tion, until by Christ's resurrection life and immor- 



172 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



tality have been brought to Hght; and though 
the grave be still in the twilight, though the 
forms there be shadowy, we may see enough to 
give us great joy and to add new force to the 
doctrine before us of the dead as waiting for the 
living. 

Thus we may be certain that the dead are not 
unconscious. We say they are asleep, but we 
only mean that they seem to be. Their souls are 
not asleep. There is no break in the continuity 
of their life. The very phrase used in the Old 
Testament, that they have been gathered unto 
their fathers, would seem to imply this, for we 
hardly suppose it to mean merely that their 
bodies have been laid in the ancestral tomb. 
Twice the phrase is used when this was certainly 
not the case. At any rate, the revelations of 
later Scriptures made this perfectly certain. Who 
were those visitors from the other world whom 
the disciples saw talking with Christ on the 
Mount of Transfiguration ? They were Moses 
and Elijah, who years before had passed into the 
other world, and who there were evidently inter- 
ested in the progress of events on earth, since 
they came to commune with the Christ for whom 
on earth they had looked. What was Paul's 
view of death, as he viewed the possibility of it 



THE WAITING DEAD 



173 



for himself? It was "to depart, and to be with 
Christ ; which is far better." That impHes a con- 
scious hfe immediately after death, so that we are 
not surprised to read in the Apocalypse of visions 
of the saints in glory or that at the end Jesus 
will return with ten thousands of His saints. 
The dead, therefore, are not unconscious ; when 
we say that they are waiting we mean it literally, 
— they are expecting and looking forward to the 
object of their hope. 

Then, again, we may be certain that the state 
of the dead is not one of probation. This was 
the idea of the wise man when he wrote, " What- 
soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy 
might; for there is no work, nor device, nor 
knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither 
thou goest." This is beyond doubt the reason 
why the Scriptures declare so emphatically that 
this Hfe is a probation — Now is the accepted 
time ; now is the day of salvation." " It is ap- 
pointed unto men," we read, " once to die, but 
after this the judgment"; and at the latter men 
are to be judged for the deeds done in the body. 

I know that the idea of a probation after death 
is now a favorite one, but it is held in the face of 
the whole drift of revelation. I think it alto- 
gether more Scriptural to abide by the view that 



174 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



at death destiny is fixed ; the children of God go 
to their place and the children of the Wicked 
One to theirs. This does not mean, however, that 
the reunion of the one or the misery of the other 
is complete. On the contrary, they are waiting, 
as we shall see. Only we may be sure that the 
believing dead, — for it is of these we are speak- 
ing, — do not wait in any uncertainty. Their lot 
is fixed. They rest in hope. They wait in peace. 
They are not passing through any more proba- 
tion. All that is ended. Their struggles, their 
battles, are over. They rest from their labors. 
They are in Abraham's bosom. They are in the 
arms of Christ. 

Now it almost necessarily follows from what 
has been said that the state of beHevers after 
death is one of complete happiness and entire 
holiness. It is just here that we lack much 
information that tearful eyes have sought to dis- 
cover. But we recall again the words of the 
apostle, " To depart, and to be with Christ," and 
we are sure that to be with Christ is to be happy, 
that it is to be also holy, — for who could be in 
His presence in glory without being purified? 
That it is to possess more knowledge and power 
and joy than now we can well conceive. How 
could they rest from labors if not holy, when the 



THE WAITING DEAD 



175 



greatest object of their labors is to attain holi- 
ness ? 

But what the external conditions of existence 
are in this intermediate state we know not, and I 
have no wish to speculate. By what organs the 
soul shall take part in the Hfe of that dim world 
we can only guess. That there, too, as on earth, 
there will be a process of growth and spiritual 
development in believers, we may fairly suppose, 
while admitting their sinlessness. That the ab- 
sence of earth and flesh, and the presence of 
Christ and the glorified will give free play to the 
spiritual life of the soul, and will at once banish 
sin as well as temptation, sorrow as well as care, 
we seem to have reason to believe. Then are the 
spirits of just men made perfect, and the believer 
in Jesus may be laid to rest in the confidence that 
he has already entered into the joy of his Lord, 
has already tasted the sweets of his Saviour's 
presence, has already been blessed by entering 
into the life of the family of God. 

Yet it is none the less true that the dead are 
waiting, and waiting for the living, — not rest- 
lessly, not unhappily, but eagerly and with vivid 
anticipation, we may suppose. Nor do I mean 
merely that they are waiting for the living to join 
them in the other world. No doubt this also is 



176 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



true. They carry with them the remembrance of 
those they loved on earth, and doubtless will be 
glad to welcome them when in God's time they 
too are summoned hence. They wait, I doubt 
not, to see the harvest gathered from the seeds of 
love and truth which they sowed in the hearts of 
others, to see the fulfillment of the prayers perhaps 
whose answer they were not permitted to see on 
earth. They wait for the living, and if it be pos- 
sible, they gladly join in the anthems of praise 
which give fresh glory to Christ as one and 
another of His people take their places in the 
happy throng. 

But this is not the main sense in which they are 
said to be waiting for the living. This is not the 
sense in which we have spoken of Jacob and 
Joseph as waiting for their children. These pa- 
triarchs died in the hope, as I have said, of Israel's 
return to Canaan, of Israel's glory in the promised 
land, in the hope of the fulfillment on earth to 
Israel of all the promises of God. The great 
truth, therefore, is that the dead are waiting for 
the living to work out and establish, under God, 
the promised kingdom of Christ. What was it 
that Moses and Elijah were most interested in, if 
we may judge from their words at the Transfigura- 
tion ? We read that they spoke of the decease 



THE WAITING DEAD 



177 



which Jesus was about to accomplish at Jerusa- 
lem. Ah ! they had been waiting in the other 
world for the coming of the Christ, for the prom- 
ised glory to dawn on Israel in the flesh, for the 
great sacrifice for human sin to be offered. Did 
not Jesus say, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day : 
and he saw it," — saw it doubtless from above, — 
" and was glad " ? 

Then do you not remember how Paul com- 
forted the Thessalonian Christians by assuring 
them that those who had fallen asleep in Christ 
should rise first and share with the living in the 
future kingdom ? He too, it is evident, thought 
of the dead as waiting for the providence of God 
and the toil of the Church to work out in the Hv- 
ing world the appointed day of victory. So, finally, 
John makes us hear the souls of the martyrs cry- 
ing unto God, " How long, O Lord, holy and true, 
dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on 
them that dwell on the earth " ? We are told that 
white robes were given unto every one of them ; 
and it was said unto them that they should rest 
yet for a little season, until their fellow servants 
also and their brethren, that should be killed as 
they were, should be fulfilled. That is but a pic- 
ture, made fearful by the lurid lights of the Apoc- 
alypse, of the Church above waiting for the mis- 
12 



178 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



sion of the Church on earth to be carried out. 
This, then, is the great idea which was in the 
mind of the patriarchs when they died : In death 
they were to wait for the Hving to fulfill the work 
of God for the generations following, to hasten on 
the consummation, waiting for the wheels of 
Providence to revolve, for the kingdom of the 
Christ to come ; waiting for the living to receive 
the fulfillment of the promise in the faith of which 
they died. So thought the writer of the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, for he concludes his familiar 
catalogue of Hebrew beHevers with these words, 
" These all, having obtained a good report through 
faith, received not the promise : God having pro- 
vided some better thing for us, that they" — 
mark you — " that they without us should not be 
made perfect." The dead are waiting for the 
living to carry out the work of God. 

Now this may put the facts before us in a some- 
what unusual light, yet it is strange that we do 
not think of it oftener, so evidently is this the 
teaching of the Bible. We think of the dead as 
only waiting for us to go to them. Or we speak 
as if they had now lost interest in this world, as 
if they had laid all thought of earth aside with 
the tabernacles that they have left, as if they were 
now absorbed in the things of heaven and had 



THE WAITING DEAD 



79 



forgotten the sphere in which the best of God's 
redemption of man is being wrought out. But 
how impossible would this be ! On the contrary, 
they are waiting more eagerly than we for the 
coming kingdom. Their supreme thought is of 
the fulfillment of the promises to Christ. We im- 
agine that their lesson to us would be, " Prepare 
to die," but not so, — they would say, "Work 
while it is called to-day. Prepare to live. Double 
your energy, double your devotion, stop frittering 
away life in mere pleasure or gain, wait and work, 
as we worked and now wait, for the coming king- 
dom. Hasten by all that is in you the day of the 
Saviour's advent ! " 

Therefore I say that the thought of the sainted 
dead ought to be a grand inspiration to noble, 
active Christian Hving. How do you think they 
would live if they could again put on the armor 
or again handle the plow? Would they waste 
life in play ? Would they doubt or falter ? Ah, 
this is the message to us of the waiting dead ! 
"Seeing we also are compassed about with so 
great a cloud of witnesses, ... let us run with 
patience the race that is set before us." Paul 
would gladly have departed to be with Christ, — 
but he added, for me to remain is more needful for 
you. That is the true spirit, — there is work to be 



i8o 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



done. There is God's great plan on earth to be 
carried out. There is Christ to be enthroned. 
There is redemption to be made complete. There 
is the promised land, not far away, but here in this 
world to be attained. 

The sainted dead are waiting for us to help on 
this result, and if they can watch us here below, 
nothing, we may be sure, will give them so much 
joy as to behold us doing what we can to hasten 
the kingdom of Christ on earth. Sometimes men 
talk with reverence and affection of their departed 
loved ones and say they hope to join them in the 
better world ; yet, forsooth, they continue to live 
under the influence of passion and pride, and ab- 
sorbed in mere secular toil, as if this world and 
death had nothing to do with each other save 
that the former is the prelude of the latter, 
whereas always the opposite is true, — that world 
is a prelude to what this is to be. This world as 
it now is must become changed. Christ's king- 
dom must come in its fullness, and for this, I say, 
the dead are waiting — and waiting for us who are 
living to finish the work which they began. 

Now, why do they wait for this ? Are we to 
suppose that, when Jacob and Joseph were so 
anxious to have burial in Canaan, they had no 
thought of personally sharing with their posterity 



THE WAITING DEAD 



i8i 



in the blessings of the future? Was it mere 
sentiment which made them wish to find graves 
in the sacred soil ? Was it because they thus 
sought to secure a place in the remembrance of 
their children ? We cannot believe it. It seems 
clear that these patriarchs expected to enjoy the 
blessing also, that they expected to come from 
Machpelah some day and enjoy the promised 
land. So explicit had the Lord's word been to 
Abraham : *' Seest thou this land ? To thee will 
I give it and to thy seed." But it was not given 
to Abraham in this Hfe ; and so, I suppose, the 
patriarchs expected to come forth from the other 
world and partake in the glory of the kingdom 
which the promised Christ would establish. 

This does not mean the restoration of Jews. 
This then adds something to our doctrine of the 
waiting dead. They are waiting for the living to 
fulfill the appointed work, and this because they 
are waiting in the expectation of taking part 
themselves in the kingdom of the future. What ! 
you say, have not the sainted dead already ob- 
tained their reward? Are we to think of their 
bliss as incomplete ? Are we not to console our- 
selves by the reflection that our loss is their gain ; 
and that already they have entered into rest ? 
Certainly we are ; and I have already shown 



82 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



some of the revelations made to us concerning 
their state. In the presence of Christ they do 
enjoy rest and peace. Their race is over. Their 
probation is finished. Their salvation is fixed. 
Lazarus in Abraham's bosom has indeed gained 
much after the life in which he sat as a beggar at 
the rich man's gate, and so likewise every dead 
believer is safe and free and happy. But at the 
same time there is now an intermediate state. 
There is far more awaiting them. They have not 
yet obtained the full reward ; not yet entered into 
the full glory; not yet tasted the complete hap- 
piness of the world to come. It is not to detract 
from their present happiness that we thus speak, 
but rather to unroll before our thoughts the vision 
of still greater blessedness which awaits them. 
For they are waiting for the time when at the 
appointed signal they shall take their resurrected 
bodies, — shall join the descending Christ, — shall 
inhabit the city of God which John saw descend- 
ing out of heaven ; and then shall enter upon the 
everlasting state in which God's redemption of the 
world is to issue. 

I want you to observe the place which the 
resurrection of the dead occupies in this plan 
of the Almighty. We think of it as an isolated 
event, — as a peculiar thing, — as something which 



THE WAITING DEAD 



183 



we may scarcely believe even on the credit of 
revelation. But if you will think of the resurrec- 
tion as part of the great change which is to come 
over all this world in order to fit it for the future 
kingdom of Christ, it will appear less incredible 
because no longer isolated. There is to be, we 
are told, a new heaven and a new earth in which 
shall dwell righteousness. Society is to be re- 
organized under the dominion of the living Spirit 
of the reigning Christ. A new history is to be 
begun. The old is to pass away forever, — what 
are to be the enjoyments and employments of hu- 
manity then we do not know. But that we are 
warranted in expecting not merely an individual 
immortality but an immortality of society — of 
humanity — and that in this reorganized, redeemed 
race, men are to find their full opportunities for 
divine living of every kind, is a fact, I think, be- 
yond reasonable question. The resurrection is to 
be the reclothing of human spirits for this new 
world and new life. As they have borne the 
image of the earthly, they shall also bear the 
image of the heavenly. And as in the state be- 
yond the grave they have been made Hke Christ 
in soul, so, moreover, in the world beyond the 
judgment and the second advent, shall they be 
made like also unto His glorious body, according 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



to the power — and as part of the exercise of the 
power — whereby He is able (and is destined) to 
subdue all things unto Himself! We say, there- 
fore, that the dead are waiting. The patriarchs 
on earth sought the city with foundations, the 
patriarchs in heaven are still waiting for it ; and 
the patriarchs died in the hope that they too 
should share the promised inheritance, — and they 
shall, and we shall, and all the believing hosts 
shall, — for this corruptible shall put on incor- 
ruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. 
Then shall be brought to pass the saying that 
is written, " Death is swallowed up in victory." 

I was impressed recently with a sentence which 
Frederick D. Maurice wrote in a letter to a friend 
soon after the burial of a beloved sister. Speak- 
ing of the burial service, he calls it " a glorious 
duty, for the more I think of the way in which 
the children of Israel asserted their right to the 
possession of Canaan, merely by burying their 
dead in it, and consider the exactness of the type 
in all particulars, — the more do I feel that every- 
body put into this earth is a new declaration that 
Christ is coming to claim the earth for His 
Church." That is true ! They are waiting for the 
signal to return ! They are waiting to take their 
places in the new world, to enter through the 



THE WAITING DEAD 



185 



gates into the city where the nations of them that 
are saved shall walk in the light of Christ ; where 
there shall be no more curse ; where they shall 
see His face and His name shall be in their fore- 
heads ; where the Lord God shall give them light, 
and they shall reign forever and ever. 

Thus, then, Genesis closes with this suggestion 
of the waiting dead, and when the great patriarchs 
have been laid in their sepulchers, the history pro- 
ceeds with the long record of their children's fal- 
tering progress toward the attainment of the 
hopes in which Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, 
died ; and slowly the movement went forward till 
the Shiloh came, and now more grandly is it mov- 
ing onward toward the second coming. We, my 
hearers, are the spiritual children of Abraham, 
and ours too is the patriarch's faith and hope. 
Therefore the multitude of the waiting dead 
should urge us on. As I have said, they cry to 
us not that we should come to them, but that we 
should, so to speak, hasten the time of their com- 
ing to us, — that we should live and work and 
hasten the glad end, — do what we can to make 
the new world in which they are to share with us. 
As you think of the cloud of witnesses, run your 
race ! Doubtless you have loved ones there — 
sainted friends. " There are the good and blest, 



THE SINLESS CHRIST 



those I love most and best." You are apt to think 
that your reverence for them should lead you 
merely to keep their memory green. But not so. 
Let the thought of them as waiting lead you rather 
to work and live more noble, more Christlike lives. 
This is the wish of the waiting dead. Should not 
the soldier, at sight of his dead comrade, turn 
more fiercely to the battle to win the cause for 
which his comrade died ? Has not the grave of 
Livingstone in the heart of Africa quickened thou- 
sands of hearts to carry out the great missionary 
work ? And when we think of those who beHeved 
and died not having received the promises, what 
shall we infer if not that we are more zealously to 
follow the road in following which they fell? 
O hving men, heed, I pray you, the message of 
the dead ! They being dead, still speak. Live 
true Christian, active, toiling lives. Press toward 
the promised inheritance, that with Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, with others whom we need not 
name, you should see in full glory the kingdom 
of God. 



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